But Andy, you miss the subtle connections in Smapti’s reasoning; it didn’t occur to me until today. Let’s see if I can break it down.
I think even Smapti would concur that the three points below are a fair summary of what he has posted here:
People have a right to defend themselves if they believe they are in danger.
A gun allows people to defend themselves when they believe they are in danger.
Therefore people should be allowed to obtain and carry guns and use them when they believe they are in danger.
But let’s take that a little farther out, shall we.
Given the above, more and more people should possess guns and be prepared (trained) to use them to alleviate being in danger.
As more people are armed and move around society with guns, the level of danger to a person increases (because, that guy over there has a gun and while he may be the most pacific person in the world, that gun represents a potential danger to me and mine).
As the potential for being in danger increases (since most everyone is packing), the use of guns to defend oneself will also increase.
As more guns get used in defense, people without guns will arm themselves because they believe themselves in danger.
Therefore, everybody will go around armed, which would be Smapti’s nirvana, as am armed society is a polite society (at least for the survivors…)
Just in case it isn’t clear, I do not find his ideas intriguing in the slightest nor do I subscribe to Smapti’s newsletter and find his stance on this topic (albeit I find him quite readable outside of it) appalling.
Well, no. The fact that people in this country are allowed to obtain and carry guns to the extent that they are is the main reason that our society is so dangerous, that one has little reason to trust a stranger, and that shooting first seems like a good idea.
My “nirvana”, to use your words, would be a society where the types of guns available to civilians are strictly regulated, owners are licensed, the firearms themselves are registered and prohibitively expensive, and the only reason a person would want to own one is for sport or for defense from wild animals in rural areas.
Unfortunately, that’s not the reality in this country. In this country, almost anyone can potentially be armed anywhere, any time, with any manner of nefarious intent, and one has to take that into consideration when engaging in a threat analysis.
(For the record; I do not own a gun, I have never fired anything more powerful than a BB gun, and I do not feel that I need to own a gun to defend myself.)
From my experiences, which includes several years of armed security work and a couple of martial arts belts, as well as 17 years of living in an urban area, taking long walks unarmed in bad neighborhoods and downtown, etc…
The idea of resorting to deadly force when you believe you are in danger is seriously wrong.
Damn, there were plenty of times I was most definitely ‘in danger’ and resolved things with my TWO MOST IMPORTANT TOOLS IN THE WORLD.
My mouth, and my brain.
Smapti, your constant pushing of this idea that you can freely gun down anyone and anything that makes you feel threatened or in danger is what makes YOU completely insane and unreasonable.
I’ve had drug dealers try to rob me on the street. I walked away with all my possessions and no one got hurt.
I’ve had people walk up to me and try to start fights for reasons that had fuck-all-nothing to do with me, because I just happened to appear in the area - and I’ve walked away without any fight taking place - and no, I didn’t run.
I’ve been in a government center where one man was screaming and making violent threats, the employees were running for cover and the Sheriffs and security were massing outside the room. I never said a word, but I stood next to the guy receiving the abuse (I was armed, never touched my weapon) and neither of us was attacked. The cops eventually came in in force and arrested him. Smapti would have me gunning down the man because I had a gun and he was making threats. Me, my only goal was to ensure no one got hurt, and I did that.
Common sense calls to a right to protect one’s life by whatever means are necessary and available. If it’s 3 AM, my car is dead on the roadside in the middle of nowhere, and someone pulls up and jumps at me with the intent to do me harm, to where do you expect me to “retreat”? Why is it more important to you that I, or any other human being in a similar situation, be expected to sacrifice their life, than that you be expected to countenance an act of self-preservation that you’re too squeamish to acknowledge as necessary? Why are human lives of less value than your personal dignity?
Which is not an argument I’ve made, for the record. Perhaps you meant to direct that at one of the other posters in this thread who’ve been arguing at some hypothetical person that believes such a thing.
That’s a noble goal. What will you do when “ensure nobody gets hurt” is not an option, and you’re one of the people who’s liable to get hurt, or killed?
Snidely Whiplash doesn’t want you walking on his sidewalk, and he considers ALL sidewalks to be his sidewalks. Do you retreat? Cross the street? Walk around the block?
Mr Whiplash decides that he want’s your wallet. Do you give it to him? Do you retreat? Do you ask him to ask you nicely?
Mr Whiplash has decided that you need a severe beating because he saw you walking around your (not his) neighborhood? Do you retreat? What if he’s faster that you are. He catches you and begins kicking your ass. If you could get up, would you retreat?
Second that. Read his post #6582 and it sounds like something Hilary Clinton would endorse and the NRA would hate…and compare that to the many other posts that Smapti has made on this thread…there does seems to be a bit of…something that confuses me, at least.
I guess one can bend one’s mind to carry that much (seemingly) contradictory thought in one’s head; and I can (dimly) see where Smapti is going, philosophically (sp) at least, but it does make for some puzzlement, I grant you.
If I believe I am in danger, then I have the right to negate that threat by whatever means I have at my disposal. I am not obligated to hold back or “fight fair”. That does not, in spite of your strawmen, mean that it is a good idea to shoot anything that frightens you. When presented with a perceived threat, one’s response should be measured in proportion to the nature of the threat as one perceives it at that instant in time, but one is not obligated to restrain themselves from using extreme force merely because the facts as they understood them in that instant were not congruous with the actual facts as discovered later.
Like I said, I would prefer to live in a world where no law-abiding citizen ever has to deal with the possibility that someone might come at them with a deadly weapon. I don’t, though, and it would be irrational for me to behave as if I did, or to judge other people in this society as if they didn’t.
If it is legal for me to own and carry a gun, then it follows that I have a right to use one to defend myself from other people who might also be carrying one. If it’s not, then the legitimacy of that argument decreases.
Your repeatedly stated ideas of what constitutes a threat and how easily people should be allowed to kill innocent people, pets, bystanders, etc, is the tell here.