Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pattern-chaser]

An interesting concept, though (like many others) you equate "gun control" with gun confiscation. Not the same.

In a country with as many guns as your USA, any law enacting gun control would have limited effect, I think. Most would break it whenever it suited them, it would be difficult to enforce, even difficult to detect that it had been broken. And the huge number of guns involved would also, I suspect, weaken the overall effect of any 'control'. For practical purposes, I think gun control in the USA would have to involve gun confiscation. An awful lot of gun confiscation. The scrap metal alone could be worth millions. Perhaps I could become the first gun-recycling billionaire...?

[LuckyR]

An interesting concept, though (like many others) you equate "gun control" with gun confiscation. Not the same.

In a country with as many guns as your USA, any law enacting gun control would have limited effect, I think. Most would break it whenever it suited them, it would be difficult to enforce, even difficult to detect that it had been broken. And the huge number of guns involved would also, I suspect, weaken the overall effect of any 'control'. For practical purposes, I think gun control in the USA would have to involve gun confiscation. An awful lot of gun confiscation. The scrap metal alone could be worth millions. Perhaps I could become the first gun-recycling billionaire...?

As likely as gun confiscation in Afghanistan, but I wish you well.

[Pattern-chaser]

An interesting concept, though (like many others) you equate "gun control" with gun confiscation. Not the same.

In a country with as many guns as your USA, any law enacting gun control would have limited effect, I think. Most would break it whenever it suited them, it would be difficult to enforce, even difficult to detect that it had been broken. And the huge number of guns involved would also, I suspect, weaken the overall effect of any 'control'. For practical purposes, I think gun control in the USA would have to involve gun confiscation. An awful lot of gun confiscation. The scrap metal alone could be worth millions. Perhaps I could become the first gun-recycling billionaire...?

As likely as gun confiscation in Afghanistan, but I wish you well.

Thanks for the good wishes, but I think it should be me, a non-American, wishing you well, in your gun-controlled () country. Be well, be safe, and don't get shot!

[LuckyR]

An interesting concept, though (like many others) you equate "gun control" with gun confiscation. Not the same.

In a country with as many guns as your USA, any law enacting gun control would have limited effect, I think. Most would break it whenever it suited them, it would be difficult to enforce, even difficult to detect that it had been broken. And the huge number of guns involved would also, I suspect, weaken the overall effect of any 'control'. For practical purposes, I think gun control in the USA would have to involve gun confiscation. An awful lot of gun confiscation. The scrap metal alone could be worth millions. Perhaps I could become the first gun-recycling billionaire...?

As likely as gun confiscation in Afghanistan, but I wish you well.

Thanks for the good wishes, but I think it should be me, a non-American, wishing you well, in your gun-controlled () country. Be well, be safe, and don't get shot!

Fortunately, (like most things in life) shootings are unevenly distributed in the US. For me personally, where I live, my risk of being a shooting victim is likely at or below that of an average resident of a European city of similar size.

https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-vi ... %7E45.5388

[Sy Borg]

US gun laws have been a huge own goal. The world has aped the US in many ways. However, we avoid US gun policies like the plague. We are in no rush to introduce Handmaid's Tale-style abortion laws either.

You would think it logical to regulate dangerous equipment like guns and restrict access to them by the mentally ill. The world has also noticed is that it is seemingly impossible for the US to properly regulate firearms at that stage without inciting civil war. Regardless, regulation would be futile due to the many black market weapons. The horse has bolted.

[Lagayascienza]

As you have said, Sy Borg, it is an egg that can no longer be unscrambled. They are stuck with it. Imagine if Trump loses the next election and again calls out all his storm-troopers, armed to the teeth, to take over the Capitol. They might succeed this time. Or at least cause a massive blood-bath. But such a possibility, along with the thousands killed by guns each year, accidentally and deliberately in murders and school and shopping-mall massacres, seems to be a price most Americans are prepared pay for the right to bear arms. To people in other countries it seems crazy. To a majority of Americans it seems to makes perfect sense. They will not give up their guns. Only a dictator with complete control of law enforcement and the military and could succeed in disarming Americans.

[UniversalAlien]

Guns in the USA have a particular histoical significanse - One reason it is so hard to regulate them without generating much ill will.

The English were probably the first to try gun regulation and even confiscation before the American Revolution - See what that led to

In my new old age hobby of looking for interesting new and old TV shows to stream I came across this classic Western from 1957 - 1963.

"HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL" staring Richard Boone - In many ways a thinking Man's Western with Boone playing a well to do gun figher who who was more like a private investigator backed up by his talents as a part time gun fighter.

HIs business card read:

"HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL" - wire Paladin, San Francisco

Apparenltly well educated and when not working out on the range he lived like a wealthy gentleman in San Francisco.

This quote is from Season 2 episode 2 where a dying outlaw who Paladin was bringing in to collect the reward for returning what the old outlaw stole
happened to get shot by one of his men who the outlaw had double crossed and he then asks Paladin to say a few words over him as he lay dying.

So Paladin says the following quote:

PALADIN
“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift,
or the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise,
nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill;
but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time:
as fishes that are taken in an evil net, as birds that are caught in a snare;
so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them.”

ECCLESIASTES 9:11,12

I first saw this series maybe 60 years ago - And as watch it again now and after binge streaming all kinds of TV series,
still consider this series to be not only one of the greatest Westerns, which I'm not a particular fan of anyway,
but one of the greatest TV series of all time

[Pattern-chaser]

The English were probably the first to try gun regulation and even confiscation before the American Revolution - See what that led to

It led to many fewer gun-related deaths. A situation that still persists today. We gained much. That's what it "led to".

[LuckyR]

The English were probably the first to try gun regulation and even confiscation before the American Revolution - See what that led to

It led to many fewer gun-related deaths. A situation that still persists today. We gained much. That's what it "led to".

True, but not fewer overall deaths.

"Overall, standardised death rates for England and Wales were similar to the US rates, but there was considerable variation within the US data by race."

Only a surprise if one doesn't consider the many fold greater airplay of murder above it's minimal impact on overall death stats.

[Pattern-chaser]

The English were probably the first to try gun regulation and even confiscation before the American Revolution - See what that led to

It led to many fewer gun-related deaths. A situation that still persists today. We gained much. That's what it "led to".

True, but not fewer overall deaths.

"Overall, standardised death rates for England and Wales were similar to the US rates, but there was considerable variation within the US data by race."

Only a surprise of one doesn't consider the many fold greater airplay of murder above it's minimal impact on overall death stats.

Intentional homicides tell a different story, apparently. Here, the data seem to show that the USA is either 4 or 18 times that of the UK, depending on the specific category. I don't know how closely this resembles the results of gun-crime-only consideration.

[UniversalAlien]

The English were probably the first to try gun regulation and even confiscation before the American Revolution - See what that led to

It led to many fewer gun-related deaths. A situation that still persists today. We gained much. That's what it "led to".

I suppose there are some advantages of living in a totalitarian police state such as the UK - And why do I say this and how do I define a totalitarian police state

I define a totalitarian police state as country that in fact has a government that is all powerful and asserts its authority by disarming the people while at the same time its authorities are very well armed - Further more England is considered to be one the most, if not the most, surveilled country in the World.

Technicaly you may have a Democracy with a Constitutions supposedly protecting rights - but if you have no right to protect your own safety,
your rights are limited to time, circumstance and whatever governtment is in control at the time.

Futthermore:

The UK enacted its handgun ban in 1996. From 1990 until the ban was enacted, the homicide rate fluctuated between 10.9 and 13 homicides per million. After the ban was enacted, homicides trended up until they reached a peak of 18.0 in 2003. Since 2003, which incidentally was about the time the British government flooded the country with 20,000 more cops, the homicide rate has fallen to 11.1 in 2010. In other words, the 15-year experiment in a handgun ban has achieved absolutely nothing.

That's from Mint Press News. There's another example at the Crime Prevention Research Center.

And finally:

“Free men have arms; slaves do not.”

― William Blackstone

[Pattern-chaser]

The English were probably the first to try gun regulation and even confiscation before the American Revolution - See what that led to

It led to many fewer gun-related deaths. A situation that still persists today. We gained much. That's what it "led to".

I suppose there are some advantages of living in a totalitarian police state such as the UK...

There are countries with more guns and death than yours, and countries with less. Their existence says nothing at all about gun control, or the lack of it, in *your* country.

Secondly, your attack on my country shows the problem. I make civilised and factual comments, and in return, you attack. It is this willingness to attack that leads to gun violence and death. You treat my comments as an attack on your country. Please ask yourself why.

Finally, my UK has many problems, but gun violence is (happily) very low down on our list of priorities. We don't really have gun violence, not enough to worry us. Although every death is a tragedy.

[Pattern-chaser]

Guns are for killing other people. They are not items of 'self-defence'. Armour is self-defence. Hiding behind a steel-reinforced concrete wall is self-defence. Even if you use your gun to attack someone who has just attacked you, also with a gun, it's still that: an attack. Many would see the latter as a 'proportional response', and maybe think it was 'justified', but an attack is still an attack.

If you own a gun, then you are demonstrably the sort of person who is willing, under certain circumstances, to threaten someone else's life, or take it. You have prepared for this eventuality. You have actually planned to kill someone; why else would you buy and own a weapon which has no purpose other than to kill other people?

If you live in a country where you feel the need to own a death-dealer, then perhaps you are living in the wrong country, and should emigrate? Better that than to kill, or be killed, surely?

I find this discussion sad in the extreme. We humans need to learn to live with one another. Without shooting each other.

[Pattern-chaser]

The UK enacted its handgun ban in 1996.

This is widely misunderstood. Our UK already had strong gun-control laws in place. We have had them for a long time. In 1996, some minor changes were made, following a gun attack. One or two loopholes were closed. The ownership of handguns was already tightly controlled, and then it became even more tightly controlled.

The quote you posted seems to imply that handgun ownership was legal in the UK before 1996. It was, but heavily controlled, as I have just described. Handguns were never what Americans would describe as "freely available", or anything close.

[UniversalAlien]

Guns are for killing other people. They are not items of 'self-defence'. Armour is self-defence. Hiding behind a steel-reinforced concrete wall is self-defence. Even if you use your gun to attack someone who has just attacked you, also with a gun, it's still that: an attack. Many would see the latter as a 'proportional response', and maybe think it was 'justified', but an attack is still an attack.

If you own a gun, then you are demonstrably the sort of person who is willing, under certain circumstances, to threaten someone else's life, or take it. You have prepared for this eventuality. You have actually planned to kill someone; why else would you buy and own a weapon which has no purpose other than to kill other people?

If you live in a country where you feel the need to own a death-dealer, then perhaps you are living in the wrong country, and should emigrate? Better that than to kill, or be killed, surely?

I find this discussion sad in the extreme. We humans need to learn to live with one another. Without shooting each other.

I actually find the conversation enlightening - As I say if you are happy living in your monarchy with its philosophy fine - be happy

But philosophically we are in two different realms - And even if I were to grant some advantages in the 'illusion' of safety you seem to have,
the reality is far different.

First:

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin

And your anti-gun thinking may impress some Liberal extremists here- I think, thankfully, most American will not buy it,
In fact in many places the thinking is quite the opposite.

Georgia law allows private firearm sales between residents without requiring any processing through an FFL. A Kennesaw, Georgia city ordinance requires that all homeowners own a firearm and ammunition (Sec 34-1a). No one has ever been charged with violating this ordinance.

Talking to you show why the American Revolution - Some things never change.

Just after the Redcoats' attempt to seize the arms of the rebel militia at Lexington and Concord in 1775, Gen. Thomas Gage ordered all the inhabitants of Boston to turn in their arms at Faneuil Hall for temporary safekeeping. When the people complied, troops seized the firearms, never to return them. A patriot poet described Gen. Gage's order as saying:

That whosoe'er keeps gun or pistol,

I'll spoil the motion of his systole.

"The Declaration of Causes of Taking Up Arms" passed by the Continental Congress cited Gen. Gage's perfidy in seizing the Bostonians' arms. The arms seizures were a major cause of the Revolution. STEPHEN P. HALBROOK Fairfax

So similar as Britain and America may be in some ways
- A major cause of this countries existence was in escaping from yours and the edicts and illusions that guide you
are just as bad as the edicts guiding the so-called gun nuts.

In fact, at least in my opinion, it is England's rather extreme ant-gun policies that makes things worse for people who are open
to reasonable gun control, think twice - They don't want to end up like Britain

And once again from The United States Constitution the Second Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.