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

[UniversalAlien]

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.

SAD you say

What is really sad is that you and other myopic people, especially from the UK, forget that not too long ago a mad dictator, Germany's Fuhrer, was very close to invading England and most of your military was well engaged in the war and could probably only offer limited protection to citizenry,
and many of your citizens Jews and others who wanted to disobey the German occupation would have been gathered up like cattle and sent to
concentration camps = But your country wasn't so badly disarmed back then - the people could still lfigh back - but now

TODAY- we are facing a new Russia bent on making a comeback as what Ronald Reagan once called an Evil Empire.

And if Putin and his minions could March all over England, like they are attempting to do in the Ukraine do you think they would hesitate
- Especailly since the citizenry of the UK would be defenseless as the military could be occupied elsewhere - not likely, but still possible

We all know about the draconian restrictive gun laws in England but how about Russia - Does the new Russian dictatorship under Putin allow
the citezens of Rusia to protect themselves

Gun control in Russia

As of 2013 Russian citizens over 18 years of age can obtain a firearms license after attending gun-safety classes and passing a federal test and background check. Firearms may be acquired for self-defense, hunting, or sports activities, as well as for collection purposes.

Carrying permits may be issued for hunting firearms licensed for hunting purposes. Initially, purchases are limited to long smooth-bore firearms and pneumatic weapons with a muzzle energy of up to 25 joules (18 ft⋅lbf). After five years of shotgun ownership, rifles may be purchased. Handguns were generally not allowed, but with the growing popularity of practical shooting events and competitions in Russia in recent years (e.g., IPSC), handgun ownership has now been allowed and you must be 21 years of age, a legal Russian citizen and possess a valid firearms permit. Originally, handguns were only used for sports and competitive shooting, but have recently been allowed for the purposes of self-defense on an owner's property.

As of 2023, handguns using live ammunition are not allowed to be concealed carry in public. The only legal handguns allowed in public are handguns using rubber bullets, and may be used for the purposes of self-defense. The only exception to this federal law are commemoration pistols, which have special engravings, and these can only be gifted by government officials for acts of heroism. These engraved pistols may use live ammunition and are allowed to be concealed carried, and used for the purposes of self-defense, provided the recipient is 21 years of age or older, and possess a valid firearms permit. Rifles and shotguns with barrels less than 500 mm (20 in) long are prohibited, as are firearms which shoot in bursts or have more than a 10-round capacity. The only exception for the 10-round capacity, is for use on gun ranges. Suppressors are generally prohibited and must receive special government permission. An individual cannot possess more than ten guns (up to five shotguns and up to five rifles, either rifled or smooth-bore) unless they are part of a registered gun collection.

- Wikimedia Foundation

SAD - Yes it is very, very sad, that the once great British Empire has been reduced to a nation that restricts private citizens from self-defense
more than the Russian dictatorship of Vladimir the Putin


Paradoxically I'm prone to agree with Russia's view that lethal ammunition should be kept off the streets - I'm reasonable.

Of course, and like I said when I returned to this post a few weeks ago - the American gun nut crowd attacked me for even suggesting non-lethal
self defense - they are not reasonable and when you start even suggesting English style gun laws for the US, you just motivate them all the
more


By the way Pattern-chaser are non-lethal weapons {I like non-lehtal weapons} such as 'pepper-gas' legal for citizen use in the UK

[UniversalAlien]

To continue with Pattern-chaser's view on the 'sad' nature of gun control in Ameica:


Can a pro-gun American justify their nation's gun laws to a Brit who believes that a gun-less society is safer?

How about this… During WW2 the British people didn’t have enough firearms to defend their own land when France fell. The British Home Guard was desperate for any and all guns that they could lay their hands on and as soon as possible. To help out the British, American gun owners voluntarily gave up their old hunting rifles, shotguns and pistols to help keep the Home Guard units armed. The voluntary supply of used American guns worked in your nation’s favor until your factories kicked into high gear and produced enough guns to fill the needs.

Now as for OUR gun laws. Those are OUR gun laws, not YOUR gun laws. Over here, we don’t care if your nation allows you to own guns or not. We like our guns the way that we have them. Your nation caused us to develop our gun laws the way they turned out about the time of the Revolutionary War, by the way, thanks much for that incentive. Now we stand alert and armed over here. Ready to repel any foreign or domestic attackers. We also stand ready, again, should history repeat itself to voluntarily ship guns over to Britain when your Home Guard is caught defenseless and ill prepared to protect your island nation. You’re welcome.

- Carl Dodd

[UniversalAlien]

Now from the UK where apparently not everyone is happy with gun laws that restrict the basic Human Right to self preservation against aggression:

UK Gun Laws Are Too Strict – Conservative Article

By Oliver Pike, Emma Hall and George Stroud -24th March 2021

UK Gun Laws Have Undermined Liberty And Order – Conservative Article

In the movie Dr. No, James Bond is given his famous Walther PPK. After trading in his Beretta after a fault that almost cost Bond his life during a previous mission, M tells the spy that he has a licence to kill, not to get killed. Unfortunately, anyone who has witnessed the withdrawal of the police, draconian gun legislation, and a disregard for the concept of self-defence will realise that the British people now have this licence to get killed.

Deriding the Second Amendment of the U.S Constitution is a common pastime of self-righteous Brits. But they fail to recognise their own nation’s history with firearms. The U.S Constitution was heavily influenced by the British Bill of Rights. The right to bear arms was included in both for the same reasons. The Second Amendment and the 1689 Bill of Rights both recognised the individual’s right to defend themselves not only against malcontents and criminals but the state (should it become tyrannical). Guns were commonplace in Britain, easily accessible and subject to very little substantial regulation for a long period.

In contrast, the UK’s modern licensing regime – set out by the provisions of the 1920 Firearms Act and then later 1968 Firearms Act – made guns a privilege rather than a right. Ownership now cannot be for self-defence purposes. What can be possessed is limited and any ownership is conditional on absolute state approval. In 1997, after the Dunblane shooting (last week marked 25 years since the tragedy), pistols were banned entirely. Even for our Olympic pistol shooting team.

.......... While highwaymen may be a thing of the past, muggers certainly are not. Similarly, whilst the police may create the illusion of security, they have failed to reliably stem the ever-present threat of a home invasion. Even pepper spray is banned for civilian use. Section 5(1)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968 treats them as if they were firearms for the purpose of regulation.

Such self-defence equipment would be of great help in stemming the violent assaults and robberies that are becoming commonplace in parts of the UK. However, it is reserved for selective use by the police, who have become alarmingly absent.

Those who oppose civilian-owned firearms in any substantial manner will suggest such a right is not an important aspect of our constitutional settlement; that it is an archaic curiosity to remain confined to the dustbin of history. This forgets that the “Glorious Revolution” which established the foundations of our constitutional monarchy came along with a declaration of such rights.

We don’t necessarily need AR-15s openly carried in Tesco but reasonable gun ownership by responsible adults to deter criminals from setting upon them, protect their lives and hold an ultimate check and balance against the theoretical idea of a tyrannical state. This must be recognised as an important aspect of restoring liberty and order to the UK.

Written by Guest Conservative Writer, Oliver Pike

"The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.”

― William Blackstone

“Free men have arms; slaves do not.”

- ― William Blackstone

[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.

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

As it happens, I'm not especially keen on our monarchy, or many other aspects of my country, but our gun control laws are OK. They could be better — there is almost no excuse for anyone, ever, to own or use a firearm. But this topic isn't really about my country, it's about yours. Even if the topic title isn't explicit. It's an absolute consideration of gun control, not a comparison between countries.

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.

No, the reality is roughly what I described. I have never seen anyone in the UK carrying or using a gun, except for armed police going about their business — keeping me safe and alive. And even then, I have rarely seen armed police, except on the TV. My "illusion" of safety is confirmed by empirical evidence. I am pretty safe (from firearms).

[chewybrian]

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.

No, the reality is roughly what I described. I have never seen anyone in the UK carrying or using a gun, except for armed police going about their business — keeping me safe and alive. And even then, I have rarely seen armed police, except on the TV. My "illusion" of safety is confirmed by empirical evidence. I am pretty safe (from firearms).

This assertion is beyond contention. I searched "firearm deaths U.S. vs. U.K.". The first hit says people here in the U.S. are 340 times more likely to die by firearms. In fact, the number one killer of children in the U.S. is firearms. How safe does that make you feel?

(7:30 for the slam dunk ending)

[Lagayascienza]

Good video.

And yet it seems that a majority of Americans are prepared to accept the awful death toll due to firearms. They see their right to bear arms as more important.

Beats me.

[Pattern-chaser]

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.

No, the reality is roughly what I described. I have never seen anyone in the UK carrying or using a gun, except for armed police going about their business — keeping me safe and alive. And even then, I have rarely seen armed police, except on the TV. My "illusion" of safety is confirmed by empirical evidence. I am pretty safe (from firearms).

This assertion is beyond contention. I searched "firearm deaths U.S. vs. U.K.". The first hit says people here in the U.S. are 340 times more likely to die by firearms. In fact, the number one killer of children in the U.S. is firearms. How safe does that make you feel?

It confirms my own feeling of relative safety here, in the UK. As for Americans, presumably including UniversalAlien, I can only guess it makes them feel like they need to buy more guns, to 'protect themselves' from other gun-wielding Americans?

I suspect Brits get into just as many fight situations as Americans do … but we don't have the guns available to reach for, when we're angry and out of control. Because we have strong gun-control laws, maybe? We still have knives, of course, but no country's perfect.

[Sy Borg]

The fact is that other nations are not rushing to emulate US gun laws, despite the US's unprecedented levels of influence in so many areas of the west.

Why? Because we see that the US situation is a disaster and, while our societies are far from perfect, they are not infected by regular school and mall shootings.

Still, on the plus side, gun ownership gives a person control over their own death, denied them by the state's intrusive and inhuman lack of euthanasia laws that allow the terminally ill to die with dignity. The downside here is that it's relatively easy, so impulsive moments of misery can lead to untimely death.

Many Americans have been (mis)lead to believe that citizens can't own guns in other countries. Any adult without a criminal record can own guns in all western countries, aside from Vatican City, just that gun owners need to register, and to keep their weapons safely locked up.

[Lagayascienza]

We've just had a shopping center massacre here in Australia. A guy wielding a knifed ran around stabbing shoppers, killing six and injuring more. That is bad enough, but imagine the carnage he could have inflicted if he'd had a gun or two. It seems the guy had mental health issues and so would not have gotten a gun permit for sports shooting. And sports shooters have to keep their guns securely locked up when not on the shooting range. Guns are just not available to everyone here which is why gun massacres are now very rare in Australia. However, gun massacres happen every other day in America. And that is why I don't want anyone here but the cops and the military to have guns. If guns were readily available, you'd never know when the next nutter or terrorist would come out, guns blazing, shooting the place up and killing your kids.

I haven't shot a gun for 50 years. My father used to take us out hunting rabbits. I never enjoyed it much. I wouldn't want to own a gun, much less use one. I guess most Australians probably feel the same way. Guns are for killing things.

[Pattern-chaser]

Any adult without a criminal record can own guns in all western countries, aside from Vatican City, just that gun owners need to register, and to keep their weapons safely locked up.

GB firearms policy is based on the fact that firearms are dangerous weapons and the State has a duty to protect the public from their misuse. Gun ownership is a privilege, not a right. Firearms control in GB is among the toughest in the world and, as a result, firearms offences continue to make up a small proportion of recorded crime.

Excerpted from here.

[Robert66]

Dropped in to see how this discussion has been proceeding. Seems not much has changed.

A couple of quotes, below, show that the argument has still not cleared the first hurdle:

LuckyR:
'No one is going to outlaw guns in the US, that's just a boogie man scare tactic for the unsophisticated. The maximum laws that could possibly be passed would be at the level of centralized databases, universal background checks, 3 day waiting periods, high capacity magazines, bumpstocks and other fiddling around the edge things that frankly wouldn't actually change anything for the average law abiding gun owner.'

Sy Borg:
'Many Americans have been (mis)lead to believe that citizens can't own guns in other countries. Any adult without a criminal record can own guns in all western countries, aside from Vatican City, just that gun owners need to register, and to keep their weapons safely locked up.'

Universal Alien, would you please acknowledge the fact that gun control and gun confiscation are two different things?

Also, when you talk about what you see as an 'illusion' of safety, you might try to think objectively. The fact is, "we" (in Australia, or England, or most places other than the US), are safer, because there are far fewer guns. We still operate under an illusion of safety, as no one knows when their time will come, however we are actually safer.

[Mo_reese]

I agree with you. But one reason I bought this issue up at this time is anti-gun, gun control groups will jump on this particular school shooting in Connecticut and use it push their gun control agenda. The fact that this same person who just killed all those people could have done a lot worse without guns is not brought up - so I will bring it up. If this same enraged mad man had no guns available how hard would it have been to obtain two empty one gallon containers fill them with gasoline, burn his house down and then go over to the school, barge in to the class throw the gasoline in and ignite it - what would the carnage have been then? Same could be brought up for the nut who killed all those people in the Colorado movie theater not too long ago. How many more would have died had he used a simple gasoline bomb {Molotov Cocktail} - maybe many more.

Guns don't kill people - People kill people.

You have a point that just removing the tool isn't solving the problem of what is driving people to want to commit mass murder. However, I think there is a certain machismo associated with wielding a gun esp if it looks like a cool killing machine.
Rapid fire guns are a current problem that shouldn't be dismissed just because there are other tools available.
The “gun control” groups want to control guns not eliminate them. We currently have controls but maybe need to adjust them to help eliminate the mass murders by guns.
As pointed out here, guns are not an effective way to protect oneself from a government determined to get you. I think Randy Weaver (Ruby Ridge 1992) will attest to that. But I agree that having guns might help protect one from others with guns it we get to the point where there isn't enough food to go around. Personally, I think that in that case one's guns would only be a temporary help.
Currently there are controls on automatic firing guns (machine guns) and I think the SCOTUS blew it when they decided that a bump-stock didn't make a semi-auto into an automatic firing gun. I don't see any justification for having fully automatic firing weapons.

[Sy Borg]

I'm not sure if it's just the media, but there seem to be more public stabbings in many western countries nowadays.

Still, better a knife than an AK-47.

As Mo et al said above, there are issues with having military weapons proliferating in urban areas. It's the same reason why we can't each have our own personal atomic bomb (putting aside logistics, cost etc) - not everyone is equally responsible, or sane. Sometimes people snap.

[Lagayascienza]

There does seem to have been a rise in stabbings in Australia. Maybe it's because, unlike guns, one doesn’t need a license to buy a knife. Anyone can buy a big kitchen knife at the supermarket or machete at the local hardware store. I bought a beautiful machete to slash invasive blackberry on my land. As I was slashing, I couldn't help thinking what a lethal weapon it could be. One powerful swish and you could behead someone with it. But used properly for its intended purpose, it’s a great tool. We can't stop people buying anything that could be used as a weapon. A hammer can be used as a weapon.

But guns are different. They are not like useful household tools, or garden implements. They are made to kill. They cannot be freely available for the reason you pointed to, Sy Borg. “We can't each have our own personal atomic bomb”. I don’t see that as an undue restriction on my freedom. And “better a knife than an AK-47”, again, for obvious reasons.

A populace armed to the teeth with lethal modern weapons of war would be chaotic, dangerous, dysfunctional, ungovernable and unproductive. It would be a society of vendettas and warlords. Therefore, there must be restrictions on the availability of firearms. We all need knives in the kitchen. But guns are made for the specific purpose of killing things. They have no productive role in the garden, in the kitchen, nor in society at large. No one except the armed forces and police, and maybe farmers, sports shooters (kept under locked up when not in use) and those who live in isolated areas need firearms.

I think we get laws about right here in Australia. Since the gun buy-back and the tightening of the gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre the number of gun massacres and the number of victims of massacres have both been reduced. Massacres now are mostly the result of domestic disputes where knives or some other killing method is used. (See Wiki page for list of Australian massacres)

Even if the number of knife attacks have increased, attackers cannot kill as many people with a knife as they could with an automatic rifle. And, with a knife, they need to be up close to their intended victims. A knife wielding attacker can sometimes be fought off. Not so a lunatic armed with an automatic rifle.

[LuckyR]

There does seem to have been a rise in stabbings in Australia. Maybe it's because, unlike guns, one doesn’t need a license to buy a knife. Anyone can buy a big kitchen knife at the supermarket or machete at the local hardware store. I bought a beautiful machete to slash invasive blackberry on my land. As I was slashing, I couldn't help thinking what a lethal weapon it could be. One powerful swish and you could behead someone with it. But used properly for its intended purpose, it’s a great tool. We can't stop people buying anything that could be used as a weapon. A hammer can be used as a weapon.

But guns are different. They are not like useful household tools, or garden implements. They are made to kill. They cannot be freely available for the reason you pointed to, Sy Borg. “We can't each have our own personal atomic bomb”. I don’t see that as an undue restriction on my freedom. And “better a knife than an AK-47”, again, for obvious reasons.

A populace armed to the teeth with lethal modern weapons of war would be chaotic, dangerous, dysfunctional, ungovernable and unproductive. It would be a society of vendettas and warlords. Therefore, there must be restrictions on the availability of firearms. We all need knives in the kitchen. But guns are made for the specific purpose of killing things. They have no productive role in the garden, in the kitchen, nor in society at large. No one except the armed forces and police, and maybe farmers, sports shooters (kept under locked up when not in use) and those who live in isolated areas need firearms.

I think we get laws about right here in Australia. Since the gun buy-back and the tightening of the gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre the number of gun massacres and the number of victims of massacres have both been reduced. Massacres now are mostly the result of domestic disputes where knives or some other killing method is used. (See Wiki page for list of Australian massacres)

Even if the number of knife attacks have increased, attackers cannot kill as many people with a knife as they could with an automatic rifle. And, with a knife, they need to be up close to their intended victims. A knife wielding attacker can sometimes be fought off. Not so a lunatic armed with an automatic rifle.

You're right about knives, but wrong about trucks. 86 killed in Nice, France. Way, way more than mass shootings in the US.