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

[LuckyR]

So the purpose of these killing-tools is to shoot unarmed and harmless individuals, offering no threat, because you're a bit scared of what they might do to you? Americans.

No, no, no. It's to kill extremely scary and dangerous criminal semi humans who are out to steal "our" way of life and replace it with their jungle culture. Thus it's about defending (culture) not offense.

Ah. My mistake.

America, home of the brave. And the cultured?

In the 21st century, zero out of two, alas.

[UniversalAlien]

As some people still have no iidea why the United States has a Second Amendment and how fundamental it is to American style Democracy,
let me once agani quote some history:

“Constitutional Amendments” Series – Amendment II – “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms”
August 1, 2022 By US National Archives, Posted In Constitutional Amendments, Student Resources

Amendment Two to the Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. It protects the right for Americans to possess weapons for the protection of themselves, their rights, and their property. The original text is written as such:

“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.”

The notion of average citizens possessing their own weapons predates the Constitution. In the English Bill of Rights in 1689, Parliament allowed all Protestant English citizens to “have arms for their defence [sic] suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” This law was later commentated on by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England. He described the possession of weapons as an “auxiliary right,” designed to support the core rights of self-defense and resistance to oppression, as well as the responsibility for the armed citizenry to protect their homeland. During the subsequent colonial and revolutionary periods, legal documents such as the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Pennsylvania Constitution also asserted that the right for citizens to arm themselves was fundamental.............

Written by Nicholas J. Dilley, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum

[Sculptor1]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

[Sculptor1]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

Far more than the TOTAL number of gun deaths of all people for the enture 21st century in the UK, which averages around 30-40 per year.

But, no gun control does not work obviously.

[Samana Johann]

Who ever approves harm and killing, offers even means for such, actually has to bare the same fruit of action as one who does bodily himself or orders to be done.

Just demo-crazy...

An uncommon, though internally logical opinion. Typically from a source unfamiliar with personal experience with violence.

Typical source from people knowing the world from media. My person sleeps next the most venom snakes, next to soldiers in remote forest.

Simply demo-crazy and no idea of life and reasons...

Uummm... venomous snakes have nothing to do with violence. Tell us more about these soldiers, are they a (violent) threat? Are they a source of protection from violence?

Kind of difficult to follow your train of thought, but willing to give you a break.

If one, in times of when anger or fear arise, has no means to act from a higher position, the fear to lose even more holds control. And there is police in the forest. Good householder can be sure that only own virtue acts not only as real protection but also and fear. For one having abound killing and harming of living beings, there is no more fear to met such oneself.

Snakes bit one only out of fear. Follish to fear somebody who has actually more fear. If not acting foolish others just go their way.

[Lagayascienza]

A provision being written into a countries constitution or law centuries ago does not make it right or sensible today. Conditions change and so must law. And law does change all the time. It's a moving feast. Blackstone's commentaries are irrelevant. The British no longer walk around armed to the teeth and there is no reason why Americans should do so. Except that a large section of them, minds poisoned by the gun lobby and right-wing lunacy, want to do so regardless of the death and misery it causes.

[UniversalAlien]

I started this post 12 years ago - Of course it is going to attract righteous gun control advocates many of whom live in countries where their right to
self defense has already been taken by governments sworn to protect them.

So again for the myopic and/or uneducated:

Lethal Laws: Gun Control Is the Key to Genocide

This book gives you hard proof that the downside to "gun control" is genocide, not inconvenience to firearms owners. Lethal Laws contains the authentic original texts of "gun control" laws -- with facing translations -- that cleared the way for seven major genocides between 1915 and 1980 in which 56,000,000 persons, including millions of children, were murdered. The book also shows how America took all but the last step of a major genocide just over 50 years ago, with the approval of the Congress and the Supreme Court. This work proves that "gun control", which is really civilian disarmament, delivers not safe streets but mountains of corpses.

- Chris W Stark

I wish more people try to understand the dangers of allowing the government to have too much power. This book goes into great detail on the history of oppressive governments. Thankfully we have the 2nd amendment in the USA, but politicians and people who don’t understand firearms are constantly trying to remove that right.

- nissan kia

This book is a must read for all those opposed to "gun control", and all those who support "gun control" will be horrified to find the murderous downside to it; genocide. Lethal Laws proves that all murderous governments of the 20th Century, which included Communist Russia and Nazi Germany, had previous "gun control" laws, allowing them to disarm the population and murder them later on with such horrible acts in history like the Holocaust. Lethal Laws also destroys any argument for "gun control", stating firmly that an armed citizenry is the only way to end mass murder.

- paulit. norwich

[Samana Johann]

I started this post 12 years ago - Of course it is going to attract righteous gun control advocates many of whom live in countries where their right to
self defense has already been taken by governments sworn to protect them.

So again for the myopic and/or uneducated:

Lethal Laws: Gun Control Is the Key to Genocide

This book gives you hard proof that the downside to "gun control" is genocide, not inconvenience to firearms owners. Lethal Laws contains the authentic original texts of "gun control" laws -- with facing translations -- that cleared the way for seven major genocides between 1915 and 1980 in which 56,000,000 persons, including millions of children, were murdered. The book also shows how America took all but the last step of a major genocide just over 50 years ago, with the approval of the Congress and the Supreme Court. This work proves that "gun control", which is really civilian disarmament, delivers not safe streets but mountains of corpses.

- Chris W Stark

I wish more people try to understand the dangers of allowing the government to have too much power. This book goes into great detail on the history of oppressive governments. Thankfully we have the 2nd amendment in the USA, but politicians and people who don’t understand firearms are constantly trying to remove that right.

- nissan kia

This book is a must read for all those opposed to "gun control", and all those who support "gun control" will be horrified to find the murderous downside to it; genocide. Lethal Laws proves that all murderous governments of the 20th Century, which included Communist Russia and Nazi Germany, had previous "gun control" laws, allowing them to disarm the population and murder them later on with such horrible acts in history like the Holocaust. Lethal Laws also destroys any argument for "gun control", stating firmly that an armed citizenry is the only way to end mass murder.

- paulit. norwich

What a foolish nonsens... How can one expect that a ordinary common person has any ability to judge or any sense of responsibility.

It's like thinking stop to pay people to clean toilets and streets, people will make it right and proper by their own.

Governing is about enforcing duties not about support individual stupidy and desires. People at large still don't realice that nothing more violent, racist and without moral then pseudo liberal, demo-crazies and anarchist.

It would be better to enforce freedom of doing duties and clean, sure such sometimes requires some means to get punk moved on.

[LuckyR]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

Far more than the TOTAL number of gun deaths of all people for the enture 21st century in the UK, which averages around 30-40 per year.

But, no gun control does not work obviously.

The US murder rate is 5.5 times that of the UK, BUT Switzerland, which mandates citizens have assault rifles in the home for civil defense, has a murder rate about 3 times lower than the UK. It's not only (or mostly) about guns.

[Sculptor1]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

Far more than the TOTAL number of gun deaths of all people for the enture 21st century in the UK, which averages around 30-40 per year.

But, no gun control does not work obviously.

The US murder rate is 5.5 times that of the UK, BUT Switzerland, which mandates citizens have assault rifles in the home for civil defense, has a murder rate about 3 times lower than the UK. It's not only (or mostly) about guns.

I 've no idea why anyone thinks this knee-jerk response is worthy. People should look at the facts

THe UK is comparable to the USA, Switzerland is not.

Gun ownership and citizenry is highly regimented and gun laws strict.
Gun onwership in ALL cases is preceeded by training and a term in the defence forces. Gun ownership is an alienable right, not so in the US excpet in the most extreme circumstances. Guns are owned as citizens are part of a formal defence force.
The Swiss while seeming to be permissive have very strict gun laws and a homogenised population with little poverty and low crime generally.
Switzerland is one of the world's greatest financial centres and has the most stingent immigration laws. It is odd for many reasons.
High-income, non-EU European economy; renowned banking and financial hub; extremely low unemployment; highly skilled but aging workforce; key pharmaceutical and precision manufacturing exporter.
There is a lack of young people. But those there are get well catered and educated.

It would be a no brainer to say Switzerland is unique, but there is little to compare it with the USA, where educational standards are low, unemployment and pvoerty high, and inequality the biggest on earth.

[Lagayascienza]

It's crazy to compare Switzerland with the USA or anywhere else. Even in Europe Switzerland is re odd man out. And conditions of gun ownership in Switzerland are so different to the USA or anywhere else that any comparison is meaningless.

[Pattern-chaser]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

Far more than the TOTAL number of gun deaths of all people for the enture 21st century in the UK, which averages around 30-40 per year.

But, no gun control does not work obviously.

The US murder rate is 5.5 times that of the UK, BUT Switzerland, which mandates citizens have assault rifles in the home for civil defense, has a murder rate about 3 times lower than the UK. It's not only (or mostly) about guns.

That Switzerland is a special case is not in dispute. But Sculptor1's point still stands: America, where everyone owns a few hundred firearms, has many more gun-related deaths than the UK (and other countries too), where gun control is firm and in place...?

[LuckyR]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

Far more than the TOTAL number of gun deaths of all people for the enture 21st century in the UK, which averages around 30-40 per year.

But, no gun control does not work obviously.

The US murder rate is 5.5 times that of the UK, BUT Switzerland, which mandates citizens have assault rifles in the home for civil defense, has a murder rate about 3 times lower than the UK. It's not only (or mostly) about guns.

That Switzerland is a special case is not in dispute. But Sculptor1's point still stands: America, where everyone owns a few hundred firearms, has many more gun-related deaths than the UK (and other countries too), where gun control is firm and in place...?

Missing the point. The comparo isn't gun murders, it's murders. Dead is dead, murdered is murdered. The victim doesn't care about the method.

The question is, does availability of guns contribute significantly to the murder rate, and if so, by how much.

[UniversalAlien]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

Far more than the TOTAL number of gun deaths of all people for the enture 21st century in the UK, which averages around 30-40 per year.

But, no gun control does not work obviously.

The US murder rate is 5.5 times that of the UK, BUT Switzerland, which mandates citizens have assault rifles in the home for civil defense, has a murder rate about 3 times lower than the UK. It's not only (or mostly) about guns.

That Switzerland is a special case is not in dispute. But Sculptor1's point still stands: America, where everyone owns a few hundred firearms, has many more gun-related deaths than the UK (and other countries too), where gun control is firm and in place...?

Missing the point. The comparo isn't gun murders, it's murders. Dead is dead, murdered is murdered. The victim doesn't care about the method.

The question is, does availability of guns contribute significantly to the murder rate, and if so, by how much.

And apparently everyone is missing another point - The main reason I started this post 12 years ago. I've printed parts of this articla in the past but believe it is worth printng again - As this post wasn't made to show the statistical dangers of gun ownership, rather it was to show the very real risk of genocide being caused by gun control,
OR,
"the Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentios"


"Disarming regular people can lead to genocide"

Hundreds of news stories have been written during the past month reporting on the 100-year anniversary of one of the darkest events in world history, a two-year killing spree that claimed the lives of an estimated 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians.

Virtually none of these news stories, however, bothered to mention why the Armenians were defenseless against their rulers in the then-Ottoman Empire: because the Ottomans had disarmed them — the same tool that would enable the Nazis, two decades later, to enslave and then slaughter European Jewry.

While the remnant of the Ottoman Empire, today's Turkey, disputes many of the details having to do with the Armenian genocide, most historians agree on certain basic facts. First, that the Christian Armenians had long been denied basic rights under the Ottomans' Muslim law. Second, they were excluded from participation in the government. And third, Ottoman law made it a crime to possess a firearm without government permission. The Armenians, as British traveler H.F.B. Lynch wrote in 1901, were "rigorously prohibited from possessing firearms."

After the Ottomans joined Germany in World War I — and a British invasion seemed imminent — the Turks decided to deport the Armenians, who they considered untrustworthy, to the interior. This deportation process became a death march, as thousands, and then tens of thousands, were murdered on their way to nowhere.

The 1915 deportation decree imposed the death penalty not only for armed resistance, but also for hiding or even helping someone else hide. The Ottomans also decreed that any firearms the Armenians possessed were to be surrendered to the government. Failing to do so, the decree said, "will be very severely punished when the arms are discovered."

Ottoman authorities swept down on Armenian towns to search for guns. Villagers were tortured to induce confessions about hidden arms. Mass executions were ordered.

In Germany, the process started in a far more innocuous fashion. Political turmoil in the Weimar Republic between Communist and Nazi extremists led to the enactment of firearms restrictions requiring citizens to obtain government permission, under arbitrary standards, to obtain firearms. Of course, only law-abiding citizens bothered to do so.

At the end of 1931, firearm registration was imposed. And just over a year later, in 1933, Adolf Hitler seized power. The Nazis immediately used the registration records to disarm and crush the Social Democrats and other political opponents that they castigated as "enemies of the state." The era of concentration camps had begun.

The Jews' turn came in the fall of 1938, when the Nazis turned up the heat on the Jewish community, seizing economic assets and working to expel them from the country.

The seeds of the Holocaust were being planted. Police in Berlin and throughout Germany ordered all Jews to turn in their firearms. Thanks to registration records, they knew who they were. Many lined up at police stations to surrender their guns; those who didn't had their houses ransacked and were arrested.

Once the Jews were disarmed, the trap was set. Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass, erupted. Storm trooper thugs vandalized Jewish homes and stores and torched synagogues. Jews were beaten and murdered. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, decreed that gun possession by a Jew was punishable by 20 years in a concentration camp. Some 20,000 Jewish men were incarcerated.

Then war came, and by 1942 the "final solution of the Jewish question." Jews were searched for arms one last time and then deported to the death camps. Six million were murdered.

The Armenian genocide and the Holocaust are not the only instances in which brutal despots have disarmed their victims and then murdered them.

Similar tactics were used in Stalin's Russia, Idi Amin's Uganda, and Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Americans need to keep such events in mind the next time Washington seeks to limit gun ownership rights — or seeks to require gun registration. One cannot argue with history.

- Stephen P. Halbrook is a research fellow at the Independent Institute, Oakland, Calif., and author of the book, "Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and 'Enemies of the State' "


IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE YOU SAY

Wrong - It can happen here

In the United States one of the major political parties {Republicans} has been takien over by an autocratic dictator who wants to turn the United States into a dictatorship controlled by him - He is not a nice man, he is a race batter, anti imigrant hater, and anti any and all attempts to control him
- But he does support the Second Amendmetnt and even shows us why we need it

Do you really think that political liberals, people he has sworn to persecute when and if he resumes power are safe Do you really think dialing 911 when whatever new styoe of gestapo comes to you door will be sufficient

More than anyone else in recent American History, Trump shows us through his hatred and generation of chaos, why the civilian population needs to be armed

[LuckyR]

The number of children and teenagers shot in 2023
In the USA
6,192

Far more than the TOTAL number of gun deaths of all people for the enture 21st century in the UK, which averages around 30-40 per year.

But, no gun control does not work obviously.

The US murder rate is 5.5 times that of the UK, BUT Switzerland, which mandates citizens have assault rifles in the home for civil defense, has a murder rate about 3 times lower than the UK. It's not only (or mostly) about guns.

That Switzerland is a special case is not in dispute. But Sculptor1's point still stands: America, where everyone owns a few hundred firearms, has many more gun-related deaths than the UK (and other countries too), where gun control is firm and in place...?

Missing the point. The comparo isn't gun murders, it's murders. Dead is dead, murdered is murdered. The victim doesn't care about the method.

The question is, does availability of guns contribute significantly to the murder rate, and if so, by how much.

And apparently everyone is missing another point - The main reason I started this post 12 years ago. I've printed parts of this articla in the past but believe it is worth printng again - As this post wasn't made to show the statistical dangers of gun ownership, rather it was to show the very real risk of genocide being caused by gun control,
OR,
"the Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentios"


"Disarming regular people can lead to genocide"

Hundreds of news stories have been written during the past month reporting on the 100-year anniversary of one of the darkest events in world history, a two-year killing spree that claimed the lives of an estimated 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians.

Virtually none of these news stories, however, bothered to mention why the Armenians were defenseless against their rulers in the then-Ottoman Empire: because the Ottomans had disarmed them — the same tool that would enable the Nazis, two decades later, to enslave and then slaughter European Jewry.

While the remnant of the Ottoman Empire, today's Turkey, disputes many of the details having to do with the Armenian genocide, most historians agree on certain basic facts. First, that the Christian Armenians had long been denied basic rights under the Ottomans' Muslim law. Second, they were excluded from participation in the government. And third, Ottoman law made it a crime to possess a firearm without government permission. The Armenians, as British traveler H.F.B. Lynch wrote in 1901, were "rigorously prohibited from possessing firearms."

After the Ottomans joined Germany in World War I — and a British invasion seemed imminent — the Turks decided to deport the Armenians, who they considered untrustworthy, to the interior. This deportation process became a death march, as thousands, and then tens of thousands, were murdered on their way to nowhere.

The 1915 deportation decree imposed the death penalty not only for armed resistance, but also for hiding or even helping someone else hide. The Ottomans also decreed that any firearms the Armenians possessed were to be surrendered to the government. Failing to do so, the decree said, "will be very severely punished when the arms are discovered."

Ottoman authorities swept down on Armenian towns to search for guns. Villagers were tortured to induce confessions about hidden arms. Mass executions were ordered.

In Germany, the process started in a far more innocuous fashion. Political turmoil in the Weimar Republic between Communist and Nazi extremists led to the enactment of firearms restrictions requiring citizens to obtain government permission, under arbitrary standards, to obtain firearms. Of course, only law-abiding citizens bothered to do so.

At the end of 1931, firearm registration was imposed. And just over a year later, in 1933, Adolf Hitler seized power. The Nazis immediately used the registration records to disarm and crush the Social Democrats and other political opponents that they castigated as "enemies of the state." The era of concentration camps had begun.

The Jews' turn came in the fall of 1938, when the Nazis turned up the heat on the Jewish community, seizing economic assets and working to expel them from the country.

The seeds of the Holocaust were being planted. Police in Berlin and throughout Germany ordered all Jews to turn in their firearms. Thanks to registration records, they knew who they were. Many lined up at police stations to surrender their guns; those who didn't had their houses ransacked and were arrested.

Once the Jews were disarmed, the trap was set. Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass, erupted. Storm trooper thugs vandalized Jewish homes and stores and torched synagogues. Jews were beaten and murdered. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, decreed that gun possession by a Jew was punishable by 20 years in a concentration camp. Some 20,000 Jewish men were incarcerated.

Then war came, and by 1942 the "final solution of the Jewish question." Jews were searched for arms one last time and then deported to the death camps. Six million were murdered.

The Armenian genocide and the Holocaust are not the only instances in which brutal despots have disarmed their victims and then murdered them.

Similar tactics were used in Stalin's Russia, Idi Amin's Uganda, and Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Americans need to keep such events in mind the next time Washington seeks to limit gun ownership rights — or seeks to require gun registration. One cannot argue with history.

- Stephen P. Halbrook is a research fellow at the Independent Institute, Oakland, Calif., and author of the book, "Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and 'Enemies of the State' "


IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE YOU SAY

Wrong - It can happen here

In the United States one of the major political parties {Republicans} has been takien over by an autocratic dictator who wants to turn the United States into a dictatorship controlled by him - He is not a nice man, he is a race batter, anti imigrant hater, and anti any and all attempts to control him
- But he does support the Second Amendmetnt and even shows us why we need it

Do you really think that political liberals, people he has sworn to persecute when and if he resumes power are safe Do you really think dialing 911 when whatever new styoe of gestapo comes to you door will be sufficient

More than anyone else in recent American History, Trump shows us through his hatred and generation of chaos, why the civilian population needs to be armed

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