# A modest gun control proposal: First, confiscate all guns. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 31, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614 "2012-12-31T00:00:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/61 "2013-01-03T06:53:23Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > The same “common sense” that had the Germans in 1940 paying the Gestapo professionals. :rolleyes: Oh, Godw– ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/62 "2013-01-03T15:29:08Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > The same “common sense” that had the Germans in 1940 paying the Gestapo professionals. Are you saying what I think you saying? Please don’t go there **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/63 "2013-01-03T15:47:39Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > , and to discuss how, if they \ are so important, would a little inconvenience with little loss in functionality be acceptable to (theoretically) reduce gun deaths. We (gun owners of America) did that already: we accepted first a _de facto_ and then a _de jure_ ban on full-auto weapons, banned the importation of “dangerous” foreign guns, and accepted multiple expansions of government oversight on buying guns. We’ve accepted a little inconvenience with little loss in functionality to (theoretically) reduce gun deaths. What you have right now is already the compromise. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/64 "2013-01-03T15:59:29Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Man, you really are confident that the Rubicon will never, ever be crossed. I suppose the citizens of the Roman Republic were equally sure. If the Rubicon ever is crossed, whether you and your neighbors are armed or not will make **zero** difference in the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/65 "2013-01-03T16:09:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If the Rubicon ever is crossed, whether you and your neighbors are armed or not will make **zero** difference in the outcome. “might as well lie back and enjoy it”? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/66 "2013-01-03T18:56:51Z")
**dropzone** , I just noticed another Great Debates thread about a new decision that says Obama can execute Americans outside the US without publicly explaining his reasons. I used to think that the best defense to the government searching every home is that the actual soldiers would refuse. More and more, I worry they wouldn’t mind so much. ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/67 "2013-01-03T19:39:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If the Rubicon ever is crossed, whether you and your neighbors are armed or not will make **zero** difference in the outcome. The easy counterargument is Afghanistan, which is not currently nor has it ever been a part of the Soviet Union. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/68 "2013-01-03T21:47:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > From what I’ve read, they were so dumb our ancestors could just as easily have rendered them extinct with clubs. I think that was their distant relative, the dodo. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Who said anything about the 2nd Amendment or shooting government agents? I said that the people who hate guns somehow turn around 180 degrees when the person with a gun is wearing a uniform. They _love_ guns, when it’s the police, National Guard and Army carrying them. No, not really. Do some of us love order? Control? Victory? Sure, probably. But it’s about macro-level versus micro-level theories of risk management: Some of us suspect it’s better to make it harder for a drunk dude in Florida to shoot a teenage kid than to try to arm and train every teenage kid in Florida. Getting away from the idea that, “The only answer to a bad guy with a gun is a a good guy with a gun,” might help us get a workable answer. And that line was pretty much concocted to sell firearms, anyway. Sometimes the best way to take down a gunman is a tackle in body armor. > [@](#): > > But the other side doesn’t want a compromise; they want zero civilian guns. They’re just willing to take every concession they get as an improvement on the current situation. I don’t doubt that there are people who really do think that handguns and hunting rifles are ok, while “assault weapons” are not. But they’re not the people driving the gun control movement- the t-total gun prohibtionists are. Bullhockey. Have you seen the assault weapons proposal from Sen. Feinstein? Total prohibitionists aren’t in the pilot’s seat, we aren’t the navigator, _we’re not even in the cockpit._ > [@](#): > > It’s _only the side that has something to surrender_ that can compromise; all the other side has to offer is a promise that it will never demand more. What would the gun control crowd agree to decriminalize that’s currently banned, if it would achieve a guaranteed lasting compromise? Nothing of course, because the status quo is already intolerable to them. Well that’s how gun proponents feel- we’ve given up too much already, and for nothing. :rolleyes: Apply that logic to abolitionist argument or marital rape laws, see how far you get. The argument about what is the best law is not just a matter of haggling between interest groups in a constant give and take. Sorry for the hijack, back to whatever **dropzone** is trying to do with this. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/69 "2013-01-03T22:01:56Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Face it, whether you consider the 2nd Amendment an archaic relic or disagree with the entire philosophy it was founded on, there’s little argument that it was originally meant precisely to give the populace parity of arms with the government. In a democracy, it’s not a matter of the populace being armed as a check on the state. The populace\* is\* the state, and the right to bear arms (and thus to deny arms to individuals) rests in the state, and is administered through the organs of state, which are instruments of the self-rule of the populace. (This is why there was no individual right to bear arms until\* Heller\*, and why older traditions of jurisprudence would consider\* Heller\* hogwash. The right to bear arms and to deny arms rests in the populace collectively, who have the ultimate political authority to name those who bear arms in their service, and to write the laws regulating arms. Absent a turn toward monarchism, the Second Amendment’s enumeration of rights is practically a tautology.) Broad private gun ownership, in this republic, is not revolutionary. It is conservative. It serves to protect the existing order. It is a reinforcement of the forces of conservatism and of resistance to reform. Good or bad, those guns aren’t generally pointed at those you delegate to keep your established order. Good or bad, gun ownership is substantially a force for conservative or regressive policies. If revolutionaries had most of the guns, it might be different. If I were to lead a violent revolution, I would look pretty hard at unexpected equipment, including weapons and armor, and I’d break some laws to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/70 "2013-01-04T01:15:38Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > The argument about what is the best law is not just a matter of haggling between interest groups in a constant give and take. It was the gun control side that accused the pro-gun side of being unwilling to accept “reasonable” compromises. If it’s a matter of one side being right and the other being wrong, then you know my position already. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > In a democracy, it’s not a matter of the populace being armed as a check on the state. The populace\* is\* the state, and the right to bear arms (and thus to deny arms to individuals) rests in the state, and is administered through the organs of state, which are instruments of the self-rule of the populace. (This is why there was no individual right to bear arms until\* Heller\*, and why older traditions of jurisprudence would consider\* Heller\* hogwash. The right to bear arms and to deny arms rests in the populace collectively, who have the ultimate political authority to name those who bear arms in their service, and to write the laws regulating arms. Absent a turn toward monarchism, the Second Amendment’s enumeration of rights is practically a tautology.) Except that the USA is not a “democracy”, it’s a “republic”; that is, we elect representatives who pass the laws **they** think there ought to be. By design our system imposes layers of indirect rule between the people and the law, resulting in a government that is only weakly and slowly answerable to the actual will of the people. The most cursory look at some of the things that democratically elected legislatures have passed, or attempted to pass, is enough to make the hair of anyone who believes in civil liberties stand on end. Laws are passed prohibiting things, often in the wake of a moral panic, and those prohibitions often stay on the books forever, because repealing them takes a positive effort against the sheer inertia of a government that has no institutional interest in decriminalization. It’s as if a criminal justice system designed to put people in prison had no provision for ever letting them out again. How long has it taken to get even a couple of states to decriminalize marijuana? How many states have speed limit laws that reflect how fast the public actually wants to drive at? I was reading an essay the other day that in essence said that if Americans didn’t have a long and hallowed tradition of being scofflaws, life would be intolerable. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/71 "2013-01-04T01:17:08Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > What you have right now is already the compromise. A compromise, what compromise it was, that was thrown out the window with the end of the assault weapons ban. As for full auto, “compromise” is not the same as “giving up something few people would want anyway.” That’s “tossing a bone with no meat on it nor marrow in it.” > [@Robb](#): > > More and more, I worry they wouldn’t mind so much. You and I share that fear. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/72 "2013-01-04T14:57:21Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > > [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > > > The same “common sense” that had the Germans in 1940 paying the Gestapo professionals. > > That, on the other hand, didn’t make a lick of sense. Could you explain it further, like how you got from A to B or whatever letter you reached? You lost me along the way. You want to give the police and National Guard the same virtually unlimited search, seizure, and arrest powers the Gestapo had. What makes you think you’ll get a better result than the Germans got? > [@Capt\_Kirk](#): > > Are you saying what I think you saying? Please don’t go there > > **Capt** Not quite. I’m not proposing that shooting the Gestapo would have been effective. I’m questioning the wisdom of the US giving the police and NG the same level of power. See my response to **dropzone** , above. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/73 "2013-01-04T22:54:07Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > The easy counterargument is Afghanistan, which is not currently nor has it ever been a part of the Soviet Union. The easier countercounterargument is Iraq, whose heavily-armed populace was helpless to resist Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, as shown by several failed rebellions. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/74 "2013-01-04T23:05:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The easier countercounterargument is Iraq, whose heavily-armed populace was helpless to resist Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, as shown by several failed rebellions. Helpless or maybe didn’t want to? They sure seemed to resist us pretty well. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/75 "2013-01-04T23:16:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The easier countercounterargument is Iraq, whose heavily-armed populace was helpless to resist Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, as shown by several failed rebellions. Oh..the state that distributed arms for free to all members of the ruling Baath Party when everyone else had to buy them with a [$450 per capita income (1998)?](http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/meria-rubin-sanctions-1201.htm) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/76 "2013-01-04T23:24:02Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > “might as well lie back and enjoy it”? :dubious: Might as well take a lesson from the Russians. The attempted military coup in the USSR in 1991 did not fail because armed civilians resisted it with armed force; it failed because unarmed civilians took to the streets and got up in the soldiers’ faces and demanded, in effect, “Do you really want to do this?” And the soldiers were all, “Well . . . no.” It turned out the generals could not rely on their troops to turn their guns on the people they were supposed to defend. If the civilians **had** been armed, then it would have been the easiest thing in the world, both materially and psychologically, for the soldiers to shoot them. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/77 "2013-01-04T23:30:09Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > In a democracy, it’s not a matter of the populace being armed as a check on the state. The populace\* is\* the state, and the right to bear arms (and thus to deny arms to individuals) rests in the state, and is administered through the organs of state, which are instruments of the self-rule of the populace. (This is why there was no individual right to bear arms until\* Heller\*, and why older traditions of jurisprudence would consider\* Heller\* hogwash. **The right to bear arms and to deny arms rests in the populace collectively, who have the ultimate political authority to name those who bear arms in their service, and to write the laws regulating arms.** Absent a turn toward monarchism, the Second Amendment’s enumeration of rights is practically a tautology.) (my bold) The right to defend oneself and bear arms in that defense is not something that was granted either by Heller, or the Constitution itself. Those things merely recognized what predated each of them. That government or others may seek to violate or infringe on that right does not nullify that right. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/78 "2013-01-05T01:07:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Might as well take a lesson from the Russians. The attempted military coup in the USSR in 1991 did not fail because armed civilians resisted it with armed force; it failed because unarmed civilians took to the streets and got up in the soldiers’ faces and demanded, in effect, “Do you really want to do this?” And the soldiers were all, “Well . . . no.” It turned out the generals could not rely on their troops to turn their guns on the people they were supposed to defend. If the civilians **had** been armed, then it would have been the easiest thing in the world, both materially and psychologically, for the soldiers to shoot them. BrainGlutton, how did that type of strategy work out in Tiananmen Square? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/79 "2013-01-05T01:19:43Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > You want to give the police and National Guard the same virtually unlimited search, seizure, and arrest powers the Gestapo had. Like I said above, the police are only along for the ride while the NG already has those powers, at least in Federal matters, and has been used in an inappropriate manner before, including by private companies against strikers who threaten their private interests—ask the Pullman strikers. We are fortunate that these days the Guard isn’t whored out like that, but it can be, legally. All it takes is a POTUS to claim that something represents a threat to public safety, an AGOTUS in the pocket of the special interests, and a SCOTUS willing to go along. The Constitution is easily abused and we have always depended on the kindness of strangers, who sometimes let us down under the cover of “protecting” us. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614/80 "2013-01-05T03:54:19Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > (my bold) > > The right to defend oneself and bear arms in that defense is not something that was granted either by Heller, or the Constitution itself. Those things merely recognized what predated each of them. That government or others may seek to violate or infringe on that right does not nullify that right. So where does that right come from, then? Not God. Not “natural law.” Where? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-modest-gun-control-proposal-first-confiscate-all-guns/645614.md?page=5)