NRA, the American terrorist group — Bitter Crank
Gun rights are not one of my hobby horses — fishfry
That provides no argument at all in favour — andrewk
What you call "lax" gun laws are one of the core freedoms enshrined by Americans at the time of the nation's founding. Many on the left these days would decry "lax enforcement" of suppressing hate speech, not understanding that free speech is a core freedom of Americans and a damned important one.of lax gun laws. — andrewk
That somebody who has received credible death threats by powerful adversaries needs armed protection is not in dispute, and such armed protection is provided in the most gun-restrictive countries in the world, just as in the most permissive. I can assure you that the protective detail of the British PM are armed — andrewk
, as are the police charged with protecting a key witness against organised crime. — andrewk
Allowing or providing armed protection for people at grave risk under definite threats — andrewk
bears no relation at all to allowing the vast majority of the population, who are under no specific threat whatsoever, to carry guns wherever and whenever they want. — andrewk
Public policy based on whatever grab-bag of anecdotes an internet search can throw up? Really?I could give you a hundred cases at the flick of a Google search where law-abiding Americans defended themselves from home invasion, robbery, rape, and murder. — fishfry
Just shows that the American tradition of gun ownership is part of the country's history, — fishfry
Now this is a fact not commonly realized among contemporary people, but back in those days, you know those cops and Klansmen and southern redneck racists? The were all Democrats. — fishfry
JFK and LBJ were in no position to authorize black civil rights agitators to arm themselves before they went into the deep south. — fishfry
"I'm alive today because of the Second Amendment and the natural right to keep and bear arms," declared John R. Salter Jr., the civil rights leader who helped to organize the famous sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in Jackson, Mississippi. "Like a martyred friend of mine, NAACP staffer Medgar W. Evers, I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too, traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40 Winchester carbine," Salter recalled. "The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing to use them kept enemies at bay." — fishfry
You wish to take power away from the individual. The US was a country built on the rights of the individual. That's what the pro-gun people see as being at stake. — fishfry
This thread is very interesting, and it relates well to my reading of René Girard. The logic of violence outlined here seems to be everywhere in society. We tend to arrive at situations that seem to force us to choose between kill or be killed - situations that demand resolution through violence. Think even of the conflict between US and North Korea. Both sides are approaching faster and faster the understanding that it is a game of kill or be killed, which is exactly what will lead to conflict.The "left" has a more 'collectivist' approach, and generally thinks that the government should keep the peace. The "right" has no time for such nonsense and is armed and dangerous. You're probably right. We can, perhaps, afford to lose 10% of the left. That's what decimated means - 1 in 10. deci.
Some people are alive today because they were armed and were able to defend themselves. Many more people are dead today because they were armed and were pierced by a bullet before they had time to shoot their assailant. Even more are dead who had wielded their guns and were shot by somebody else first, and a lot of people are dead, whether they had a gun or not, because somebody just up and shot them with or without a good reason, or was aiming at person X, missed, killing Y instead.
Shoot before you might be shot is part of the logic of guns. Shoot first and sort out the bodies later is part of the gun logic. Shoot, shot, shit. — Bitter Crank
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