“But a militia is comprised of able bodied citizens subject to military service. Some militias are just better trained than others.”
end Quote:
Agreed, it was I who mentioned the Finns trashing the Russians twice.
But please explain how that relates to the USA in 21st century ? I was not aware that a system of official militias existed to provide the infrastructure and training required. If such does exist, what proportion of the ‘n’ million gun owners in the USA are members ?
In fact can anyone tell me what percentage of the population are gun owners ? (Not NRA figures please).
The argument from deterrence states that it is at least in part the perception of an armed citizenry as dangerous and unsubduable that deters potential tyrants from trying to take control of the US. To once again engage in the fine art of necrohippoflagelatus, that argument has been countered by the following points:[ul][li]The culture and political system of the US is not conducive to totalitarian takeover (the extreme improbability of the OP is a case in point).[]A rabble-like militia is not a particularly effective deterrent.[]This form of deterrence leads to a society flooded with firearms, which has a very high social cost. []There are historical examples of totalitarian regimes that have been felled by an unarmed population (India, East Germany, etc).[]There are historical examples of totalitarian regimes ruling over heavily armed populations (Afghanistan, currently).[]There are historical examples of unarmed democratic societies that have not been taken over by totalitarian regimes (Western Europe, Japan).[]There is a good chance that any “totalitarian” leader would have the support of at least some of the armed population, leading to infighting among militias rather than a united front against an a single enemy (regarding this last, I think that it is a pipe dream on the part of the pro-gun lobby to argue that all these separate individuals would stand up and fight in one united front).[/ul][/li]
My beef with the “pro-gun” posters is that they must answer to all of those arguments. I accuse them of picking one, perhaps the one they consider the “weakest,” and arguing against it, as if by winning that point they will have then won the entire argument. Meanwhile, I patiently attempt to meet every argument they set forth, and especially address those arguments that are “strong,” with an eye towards creating a balanced view of the problem.
Not exactly, but close enough. The Boni were Illuminati deep cover agents. May I take it from your response that you’ve never read anything by Robert Anton Wilson?
*Sure, if it’s offensive. I just use the term tongue-in-cheek because 1) ExTank refers to himself that way, and 2) it’s easy short-hand. I also told y’all you could refer to me as an “anti-gun freak,” even though that’s not what I am, really.
I didn’t know we had such radically different positions, and when I use the term “gun-nut” I haven’t been referring to you. I thought I read earlier that you support reasonable governmental restrictions on firearm ownership. That’s my point of view as well. For what it’s worth, I oppose banning guns, even handguns. I think if somebody really wants to have a gun, he ought to have one. I DON’T EVEN THINK HE NEEDS TO “JUSTIFY” HIS RIGHT TO OWNERSHIP. What business is it of mine? If he (or she) WANTS a gun, that’s a good enough reason.
At the same time, I don’t understand why ownership of such a dangerous weapon (I feel like I’ve said this a couple of times now) shouldn’t be subject to some pretty strict regulations. In the States, you can wander into a Walmart and buy a gun over the counter – there’s the gun section right over there, next to the toys. Americans are so steeped in guns and violence that they hardly even see it. A case in point: I was visiting a friend in Omaha, Nebraska, once, a city slightly larger than Gothenburg, where I currently reside. I asked him, “So, what’s the crime rate like here in Omaha?” My friend replied, “Oh, it’s not bad. Not bad at all. We only have a killing or two per week.” Not bad? A killing or two per week? I nearly jumped out of my skin. If we had a murder rate like that over here, people would be out in the street protesting. ExTank:
*Well, not without a guilty conscience, anyway.
Yes, I did see your post earlier, and suspected that it was a tacit admission that the NRA does not support that sort of legislation. I still wonder why they don’t, though. What is their argument?
It’s a nifty strategy: support a lot relatively unenforceable legislation, and then sit back and say that you refuse to support any further legislation until the gub’ment starts enforcing the relatively unenforceable ones. My hat’s off to such cunning subterfuge.
Help a brother who doesn’t know all the torturous details of this issue out, will ya? You just wrote above that the NRA opposes background checks for private firearms sales. Now you say it doesn’t oppose background checks. What sort of background check does the NRA think are appropriate, and how long do they think such a background check should take?
*Plenty of folks over here own guns, Tank despite the strict regulations. Just because they can’t stroll down to the local hardware store and pick one up doesn’t mean that they have to “jump through increasingly tortuous hoops” to purchase a firearm. You exaggerate, making it sound like it’s some kind of incredible hassle to get a gun in the States. It ain’t, if you’re really a mature and responsible gun-owner, and like minty, you would understand the reasons behind such “strict” controls.
Yeah, drugs are another tough question. But to be intellectually consistent, if you think that regulations never prevent people from using a commodity, then it would seem that you almost have to support legalizing heroin (etc.). On the other hand, if you are against legalizing heroin because you think that the laws do have an effect on its availability, then you have to justify why you think they don’t in all other cases, particularly regarding gun control.
For what its worth, I think heroin should be legalized and distributed under medical supervision to junkies by the government, but that’s a whole different debate.
*Ah, finally. You see, we agree. That’s my point. Now I know, and you know, that finding a route to a “less bloody society,” that is to say, one with fewer illegal weapons, is very difficult. It may even impossible in the US. But you now at least see why it is in everybody’s best interest restrict “easy access to guns.” That’s all I’m arguing for. Even if there are a large number of practical problems in the way, we are at least now both going in the same direction. To argue that it can’t be done, and therefor we shouldn’t even try, is to give up the fight before even stepping into the ring.
*Fair enough. How do you think we should go about stemming “the flow of guns into the hand of people with violent tendencies?” Surely not by making the gun laws more liberal.
By the way, thanks for the link to the Federal Firearms Laws, but it doesn’t seem to work. Can you fix it, please?
Finally, minty:
Congrats on you 1000th post. What are you doing here on a Friday night, anyway? Don’t you have some beautiful lady to go camping with?
Originally posted by Svinlesha *
**
The argument from deterrence states that it is at least in part the perception of an armed citizenry as dangerous and unsubduable that deters potential tyrants from trying to take control of the US. To once again engage in the fine art of necrohippoflagelatus, that argument has been countered by the following points:[ul][li]1. The culture and political system of the US is not conducive to totalitarian takeover (the extreme improbability of the OP is a case in point).[]2. A rabble-like militia is not a particularly effective deterrent.[]3. This form of deterrence leads to a society flooded with firearms, which has a very high social cost. []4. There are historical examples of totalitarian regimes that have been felled by an unarmed population (India, East Germany, etc).[]5. There are historical examples of totalitarian regimes ruling over heavily armed populations (Afghanistan, currently).[]6. There are historical examples of unarmed democratic societies that have not been taken over by totalitarian regimes (Western Europe, Japan).7. There is a good chance that any “totalitarian” leader would have the support of at least some of the armed population, leading to infighting among militias rather than a united front against an a single enemy (regarding this last, I think that it is a pipe dream on the part of the pro-gun lobby to argue that all these separate individuals would stand up and fight in one united front).[/ul][/li]
My beef with the “pro-gun” posters is that they must answer to all of those arguments. **
I disagree with the above statement, as a point of logic. Because a terrible totalitarian takeover (TTT) would be so disastrous, the anti-gun side must show that widespread-spread gun ownership provides virtually no protection against one. Several of Svin’s points don’t make that case. Taking the points in order:
Yes, if a totalitarian takeover is impossible then the anti-gunners have won the debate. I agree with Svin that it’s reasonable to believe that the “culture and political system are not conducive” to a TTT. However, the fact it has happened elsewhere gives some evidence that it could conceivably happen here. (At least, that’s the way we actuaries set insurance rates for very rare disasters.)
This point need not be answered. Even though a rabble-like militia might be ineffective, it also might be effective. Therefore a militia has potential value. Furthermore, it might deter the takeover effort from ever taking place. If the anti-gunners made a case that: a militia would definitely be ineffective and that a militia’s ineffectiveness is so obvious, that it could never be a deterrent, then that argument would need to be answered.
This point does need to be answered. One answer is that the actual gun control laws that have been enacted in the US have had limited social benefit. In fact, John Lott makes strong argument that laws prohibing the carrying of guns have caused increased crime. More generally, the gun-control side has the obligation to state what each particular proposed law will accomplish, and to prove it.
This argument need not be answered. The question is whether guns in the hands of citizens will give us a better chance to avoid a TTT.
I guess this point means that guns in the hands of citizens don’t provide a certainty of avoiding a TTT. It does not need to be answered.
To answer your first 7 points, in order… (to answer fully, each could probably use it’s own thread)
[1] You are talking about right now. None of us know what is coming down the road 20 or 50 years from now. In 1899, do you think they had ANY idea that WWI and WWII were on their way?
[2] This still seems to be a point in contention. You can dismiss it all you want, but 80 million gun owners have the potential to screw things up a little bit.
[3] I think we’ve done a good job of dispelling the myth that guns always = high social cost. Before I concede that point, you would have to address: the recent drop in crime rate with the increase in gun ownership, The whole John Lott study, Switzerland (yes, again:)) and finally the awesome social cost of governments exterminating millions of their own citizens.
[4] The case could be made that the US was the chief reason the the USSR and all of the Warsaw Pact were able to overthrow their governments. Without 40 years of the cold war, who knows what would have happened there. (Hungary anyone?) As for India…we had a good thread awhile back on whether or not those tactics worked because of who the British were, and not neccesarily because they were always good tactics. (ie. would those tactics have worked against Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc…)
[5] You will also note that Afghanistan kicked Russia’s ass. No one is claiming that gun ownership is this magic wand that prevents all problems and cures all oppresive governments overnight. Guns just give a free man a fighting chance. There are no gauruntees in this world, especially when it comes to freedom.
[6] I would be more interested in examples where countries not protected by America in the 20th century existed for extended lengths of time.
[7] Once again…better a fighting chance than no chance at all.
According to the Uniform Crime Reports, Omaha seems to have had 27 murders in each of the last two years reported. They have a murder rate of 8 per 100,000.
Significantly less than one or two per week. I’m not exactly sure where you are from, could you please post a link to an official site with crime rates in your city?
A couple of thoughts here:
[li] Why pass unenforceable legislation in the first place?[/li]
[li] Which laws do you consider unenforceable?[/li]
[li] Have you ever heard of Project Exile, and if so, what are your thoughts on it’s impact on crime in Virginia?[/li]Background Checks:
I’m young enough that I may have the details wrong about the history of background checks. This is my understanding.
The Brady Bill imposed a 5 day waiting period on any handgun(gun?) purchase. The NRA supported an alternative measure that would have required an instant background check instead. They lost and they won. They had a sunset provision included on the waiting period, and at the end of it everything reverted to an instasnt background check.
KEEP THIS IN MIND
The above only applies to Federally licensed dealers. I think your confusion comes from mixing the rules on dealers with the rules on private individuals.
You see, the Federal government just doeasn’t have the authority to regulate sales between individuals.
In NJ, it takes about 6 months to get your first gun. You need to head down to the police station and get fingerprinted, background checked and have letters from your friends. In addition, you get to pay about $85 for the experience.
When you want to buy a handgun, you have to return to the police station and ask permission for each handgun you want to buy. You also get to pay for this privilege. Each unused handgun purchasing permit expires in 90 days.
Don’t tell me it isn’t an incredible hassle to buy a gun.
At least we are a lot closer on that issue:)
Not to shock you, but…
There are those of us who feel that removing guns will increase violent crime. We see law abiding people giving up their guns, and criminals keeping theirs.
This would lower the risk associated with crime, and possibly encourage more of it.
End the war on (some) drugs, empty out the non-violent prison population and start locking violent offendors away for 30 years per offense.
Oh, so some dumb cop screws up and loads live ammo during a training excersize, and that’s reason to restrict my rights? Once again Minty wants the actions of the few to dictate the freedom of many. The idea of “minority rule” smacks of aristocracy, only in Mint Greens version the lower class (criminals, idiot cops, the worthless, the weak, etc) get to set the rules rather than the upper class. Either way, it’s a form of minority rule, and it’s the enemy of individual freedom.
I won’t participate on the gun debate per se, but being a Finn, I have to clarify Finland’s participation in WW2. My apologies for a lengthy and somewhat OT post.
First of all, there is no case to be made against or on behalf of private firearms and militias. The Finnish military did evolve in a large part from militia-like “protection corps” of the civil war of 1918, but by the late 20’s they were integrated into the military proper and had full government support, becoming rather similar to the US National Guard. There was also extensive conscription instituted in 1919 which meant that the majority of the male population had received military training in 1939.
The “miracle of the Winter War”, as the successful defence against Soviet Union in 39/40 is called here, is a complex issue. The Finnish army was badly prepared for war, as there had been significant lack of funding throughout the thirties. It was so bad that many people could not be given a uniform, merely a rifle and an identifying pin for their hat (kokardi in Finnish). There were no operational tanks or infantry antitank weapons apart from grenade bundles and ad-hoc firebombs that became known as Molotov Cocktails. AT and field guns were also scarce and often without ammunition. The Soviet army should have defeated the Finnish army rather easily, but the Soviets’ leadership was a failure in almost every way imaginable, they lost vast quantities of troops and materiel to encirclement actions, wasted men in suicidal charges and even suffered losses due to the extreme winter conditions. In the end the Finnish army, although badly battered, proved enough of an obstacle so that a peace treaty was agreed to. Finland did lose large areas of its eastern parts, including its second largest city and access to the Arctic Sea.
The peace lasted for 15 months. During that time Finland’s ties to Germany came much closer (Hitler was very impressed by Finland’s performance, among other things), and that together with the vast amounts equipment captured in the Winter War meant that the Finnish army was much more capable force by spring 1941.
It was no secret that Germany was going to attack the Soviet Union, and that Finland would be of great interest to both parties. Since Germany was the only country willing to support Finland in the inevitable second war against the Soviet Union, an alliance was formed, allowing German troops to be based in Finland. This in turn led to a large scale Soviet bombings of Finnish targets, but their groud forces stayed in defensive positions.
When the predicament of the Soviet army against the Germans became obvious, it was decided that it was possible to regain the lost territory, and so the Finnish army invaded.
The attack was successful and wasn’t halted until December 1941. In the beginning it was only intended to recapture the lost territories, but since the victories came so easily, a sizable buffer zone of Soviet territory was taken as well. Leningrad and the Murmansk railroad were both left alone at the insistence of the US government, who had no interest in declaring war to Finland. This later became rather important, as it clearly showed that Finland was not Germany’s satellite or ideological partner.
The war stalled in early 1942 and remained largely static until mid 1944. Feelers for a separate peace were already sent out two times in 1943, but the diplomatical situation wouldn’t allow it yet. In addition political ties with Germany were rapidly worsening, which meant that the crucial flow of German war materiel to Finland was threatened.
Everything culminated in the summer of 1944, when the Soviet Union launched a massive offensive in the Karelian Isthmus. The Finnish army was unprepared for such an attack, and the line was broken in many places, and the entire front came close to breaking several times, but managed to retreat orderly. Eventually the Soviet offensive slowed down, but it was clear that the army could not hold too long. Germany obviously tried to take advantage of Finland’s predicament, and demanded that Finland committed and tied its fate to Germany, that a separate peace with the Soviets would be rejected. Otherwise all military support to Finnish troops would be cut. President Ryti did indeed make this promise, but as soon as enough materiel had arrived in Finland, he resigned and the treaty was ignored by the new administration who regarded it as being made under duress and thus void.
Germany’s political influence was now eliminated. The Soviet Union was willing to negotiate a peace, and in early September their proposal was accepted. The Soviets would retain the territorial gains made in the Winter War, Finland would pay significant reparations and drive out the German troops still in Finnish territory. The war against the Soviet Union, and with it the threat to the nation’s existence was over, but there would still be bitter fighting to be done against the German units still in Lappland who would not leave.
Thank you for the elaboration, I remain as impressed by the effectiveness of the Finns as I did when I first encountered them at advanced infantry school in 1960’s.
I have actually only met one real Finn in my life, about 80 years old and mad as a cut snake, but that could be because drank Vodka like there was no tommorow. In the Winter War he flew ancient biplanes with skis off frozen lakes and was the only survivor of the 12 pilots he trained with.
When he died he left me a hunting knife, with an inscription on the blade. I have always wondered what it meant. It was someting like " Tsisaki Haven Par". Forgive the spelling, but I think that was about right phonetically. I lost it moving between postings many years ago.
It took me half an hour to decipher your phonetic version of the name, I’ve never even heard about the manufacturer (a knife is just a knife to me :D).
(I argue that the pro-gun advocates here need to answer to a series of counter examples to support their contention that an armed populace deters a potential TTT.)
december replies:
Ohhh…beautiful! One of the fastest table turns I’ve seen in recent postings, performed with grace and precision…the crowd goes wild! I give it a 9.73. What do you think, Marv?
Unfortunately, december, although perhaps not unexpectedly, I must respectfully beg to differ. To begin with, as you well know, it is impossible to prove a negative in the manner you request of me. In addition, the argument from deterrence is one of the three major arguments used by pro-gun advocates to support liberal gun legislation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon them to justify this line of reasoning. It is my job to criticize the argument and provide counterexamples, as I have done. Nice try, though.
At one level, countering this proposition is a pathetically easy task for me. That is because thus far, the pro-gunners have not been able to produce one single shred of evidence that the heavily armed populace in the US has ever deterred a potential TTT, or ever will. They can’t, and they know that they can’t, because to produce such evidence they would need to literally grab a “thought recorder” and crawl into the skull of a potential dictator, greedily eyeing US real-estate, who suddenly stops, thinks, “Whoa, dude. No way. Those bastard are armed to the teeth!” and then decides not to mess with Uncle Sammy. Clearly, they can’t do that, although they sometimes try (see Tank’s claims about the Swiss militia, above, for an example.)
Pro-gun advocates are well aware of this problem, however, so they have upgraded their tech. “Just because we can’t prove it ain’t so don’t mean it ain’t so,” they chant, usually expressing this argument in more sophisticated garb: “absence of evidence,” they claim, “is not necessarily evidence of absence.” This leaves your poor author in quite a bind, because how can I possibly meet that sort of argument? It’s equivalent to arguing something like, “Just because we don’t have evidence of Bigfoot doesn’t mean Bigfoot doesn’t exist.”
Thus, my only recourse is in this case, as in the case of Bigfoot, is to try to point out that the argument from deterrence is fundamentally unreasonable. However, reason only goes so far; somebody who really wants to believe in Bigfoot is going to believe in him, no matter what I say. So is it with pro-gun advocates as well!
(Hmmm…I like that. Maybe I should refer to that line of reasoning as the Bigfoot argument, rather than the argument from deterrence.)
Anyway, having clarified my position on this matter, I now turn to your objections:
I’m not arguing that a takeover is impossible. I’m just arguing that is very, very unlikely. It is therefore a very, very weak argument for liberal gun legislation. I could walk around town with a 10-pound steel plate affixed to the top of my head as a means of protecting myself from stray meteors, if I wanted to. If I were to be hit by a meteor, the consequences would be disastrous for me, but that doesn’t make my choice of head-gear any more reasonable. (What aspect of that argument do you not understand?)
Love it. I’m once more being called upon to prove a negative. Wrong answer, pookie. This is your argument. You must give evidence that an armed population deters potential takeovers, not the other way round. (Hint: a good way to do that is find solid historical examples. Thus far the pro-gunners have been unable to do so.)
I was unequivocally stating the anti-gunners argument, but you are essentially correct here; the social benefit vs. the social liability of liberal gun ownership is still a point of debate.
On the other hand, I wonder if even the pro-gunners buy the argument that guns have a positive social benefit in their heart of hearts. I seem to stumble across a lot of ambivalence on this point: Uncle Beer stating that there is”lots of gun violence” in the US, for example; SPOOFE claiming that Europeans have given up a modicum of freedom for a modicum of security; ExTank agreeing that the excessive availability of guns does make dangerous people more dangerous, and so on. Still, it’s a side issue for the purposes of this discussion.
Regarding (4), above, you are again technically correct, but the point isn’t totally irrelevant. The success of unarmed populations in felling dictatorships, combined with the fact that there are many dictatorships among countries with highly armed populations, and many stable democracies with unarmed populations, should lead the rational observer to conclude that there is very little correlation between armed populations and potential dictatorial takeovers.
On the other hand, we can all revert to believing in Bigfoot, if you prefer.
Finally, regarding point 7: No, it isn’t really a restatement of point 2; it’s more like a subset. In order to make the argument from deterrence appear reasonable, pro-gunners must assume that the entire armed population of the US will rise up en mass against a dictator and fight as one. This is underlying presupposition of the entire line of reasoning, and it isn’t particularly realistic IMHO.
For example, a totalitarian dictator could just as easily surf into power on a wave of popular support (if you can forgive the Californic metaphor), perhaps more easily, than engaging in some kind of military-style junta smackdown. Take Hitler (please): he was incredibly popular until the very last stages of the WWII. If this sort of takeover were to occur in the US, one could argue that an armed population would be a distinct support for a totalitarian regime, rather than a deterrence. One could just as easily imagine the Texas Militia marching in lockstep behind some reactionary fascist leader as imagine them taking up arms and fighting against him.
This is a very important point, even if I’m not articulating it as clearly as I would like to. For lack of a better way to express it, the argument from deterrence relies on a scenario that reads like a page from a paranoid’s diary. Look how contorted the original OP had to become to even get to a place wherein a military takeover had occurred: hell, even pro-gunners dismissed it as unrealistic.
Freedom:
When I wrote that I was looking forward to debating you again in the future, I didn’t realize that I was have the opportunity so soon!
Not at all. This baby’s alive and kickin’ all on it’s own! I guess you just can’t keep a good thread down…
You’ve raised some important points, but I’ve just spent half the afternoon replying to december, and I have some other stuff I gotta do. I’ll try to get back again to your post as soon as I get a spare minute.
By the way, you pro-gunners should do something about pk. He’s embarrassing the hell out of y’all.
Damn. I do so want to post to this thread; I feel passionately about this issue. But I just cannot keep up with it.
Just today I put some of my thoughts together, not all of them, just some of them. Got 'em into halfway decent shape. Went back to the thread to get caught up again, and discovered that 80% of what I had said had been already chewed over pretty thoroughly. No flavor left.
Would you guys consider maybe spinning off this thread into a handful of daughter threads? Maybe one about Switzerland, one about the social utility of guns, one about the 2nd Amendment, etc?
You are trying to suck up ALL my free time aren’t you?
I agree though, gun threads need to be more focused. In the past there have been a handful of threads that managed to stay on a narrow focus.
FTR…
Without reservation, I think that widespread gun ownership by law abiding citizens is a benefit to society.
Run, quick, get a gun! I mean after all, just because we can’t prove he’s out there, don’t mean he ain’t!
Freedom:
I won’t be able to respond to your entire post this evening, but I will try to get to as much of it as I can.
Well, I think you might as well argue that we all need to start wearing metal head plates to protect ourselves from the potential threat of meteor showers. It’s clear that life always includes a modicum of risk; the unforeseen can always happen. What I am arguing is that right now in America relatively unrestricted access to firearms is a major social problem. You can counter that by claiming that in 75 years a dictator might take over America, or even that in 10 years an army of Bigfoot Elvis impersonators are going to land their UFOs in your front lawn and invade us; both arguments are pretty preposterous and fairly irrelevant.
Yes, perhaps, if the takeover is a military one, if said militias can be organized into an effective force rather than wind up fighting each other, and *if * (insert approximately 20 more highly speculative “if arguments” here)…The point isn’t really whether or not an armed citizenry has the “potential to screw things up a bit.” By deterrence, I mean that they are perceived as a serious threat by a potential dictator – so much so that he decides that even though he can actually pull off a coup d’etat, he doesn’t, out of the fear that we will all rise up against him and deflower him with our shotguns.
The argument that an armed populace is a good deterrent to the threat of tyranny may have been valid a couple of hundred years ago. Maybe not. However, it certainly doesn’t seem to be valid today – as has been pointed out way too often in this discussion, there are plenty of historical examples of tyrants rising to power and ruling over heavily armed populations.
Okay. First off, I don’t think, and I’m not arguing, that “guns always = high social cost.” I just think that the way they have been regulated in America has led to a high social cost. With regard to your second point, I think a strong argument can be made that both the recent drop in crime rate and the increase in gun ownership are the result of the burgeoning, record-breaking US economy. I don’t know about the John Lott study, so please educate me.
As far as Switzerland goes, well, I’m getting really tired of Switzerland, I must admit. But it is a strong argument that guns in and of themselves do not necessarily lead to higher crime rates. On the other hand, I don’t think you would find Switzerland to be a very “free” country, compared to what you’re used to in America.
I refer to this entire line of reasoning from pro-gunners as the argument from social value; it is the argument that gun ownership has positive social effects, such as deterring crime. It’s really not related to the argument from Bigfoot, and you may be surprised to learn that while I am skeptical, I personally consider the case for the social value of firearms to be the best pro-gun argument I’ve encountered thus far. Not only can you point to the Swiss example, but there seems to be at least some empirical evidence (admittedly disputed), in the form of statistical studies, to support the claim that guns can have a positive impact on society. (Just to be clear: while I consider this to be the best argument fielded by pro-gunners, I am still highly skeptical.)
Regarding your reference to the social cost of “exterminating millions of their own citizens,” I assume you are somehow making a connection between private gun ownership and Hitler’s policies of racial genocide, but I’m not sure I understand your point. In fact, current gun laws in the US are resulting in the deaths of thousands of citizens yearly.
As I stated earlier, it may have been wrong for me include this particular point in my list, since it is still under contention, but I decided to because I wanted to state the anti-gun case as unequivocally as I could.
More speculation. It doesn’t matter what the external determinants of the situation regarding the USSR were; the fact remains that an unarmed populace effectively displaced a military dictatorship. The same with India; England ruled the most powerful empire in the world at that time, and they were in essence defeated by the determination of a single, unarmed man.
No? They just claim without any evidence whatsoever that gun ownership somehow magically protects them from some sort of vague, assumed, potential military takeover at some time in the distant future. That’s the cornerstone of the entire argument.
With regard to your arguments against points 6 and 7, I think you must be misunderstanding me. For what it’s worth, I feel that I would have a fighting chance against a dictator even if I didn’t own a gun privately.
By the way, I’m from Maryville, Tennessee, a little town just outside of Knoxville; I currently live and work in Gothenburg, Sweden. Part of the reason I argue so adamantly for gun-control is that I’ve lived in both a gun-rich and and a gun-free environment, and speaking from my own personal experience, the gun-free environment is safer.
I’ll try to get those crime stats for you, but it’s 2AM over here right now and I have to get up and go to work tomorrow.
The above is about as convincing as the ‘evidence’ that increased gun ownership results in reduced crime.
Quote:
I think we’ve done a good job of dispelling the myth that guns always = high social cost. Before I concede that point, you would have to address: the recent drop in crime rate with the increase in gun ownership"
End Quote:
Let us assume for a moment that both the above are totally correct ie; gun ownership HAS increased, crime rates HAVE reduced. How convincing is the evidence of correlation ?
Consider the following example;
Drug related homicides 1986= 19,257 1999= 12,658
Incarceration rates for violent crimes 1986= 258,600 1998= 545,200
If you look at the percentage changes at both ends of the equation you will notice a remarkably solid correlation.
The above figures are from the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, similar correlations can be found for almost all categories of crime. The USA now has the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the developed world. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/welcome.html
If we apply ‘Occams Razor’, ie “If there is a simple explanation its most likely the correct explanation”, then surely a much more likely cause for the reduction in crime is staring us in the face.
I never attempted to make the case that “more guns” = “less crime” in that post.
I was merely trying to show that “more guns” does not always = “more crime”.
If I was trying to make a real case, I would probably take all the data from every county, going back 20 years. Then I would examine the concealed carry laws…
…oh yeah…
…that’s been done.
Actually, yes. WWI anyhow. Most major European states viewed the succession of Kaiser Wilhelm II with (to say the least) trepidation, as it was clear that he shared Bismark’s ambition for Germany, but not the statecraft or intelligence that had made Otto B so successful. Very quickly, young Wilhelm gave them good grounds to be afraid and people started trying to form alliances. OK, so that merely exacerbated the eventual problem, but it was a defensive manouevre intended to avert, or minimise, the threat of war.
WWII
As for WWII, the seeds for that were sown in the disastrous Treaty of Versailles which a)demanded enormous sums from Germany and b)stripped Germany of the Ruhr, it’s industrial powerhouse. Leave to simmer for 15 years, and there a lot of bitter people ready to listen when a man talks to them about national greatness, the injustice of the current situation, and the fact that it’s really the fault of the Jews. And there were people (your own W Wilson among them) who opposed the ToV for pretty much that reason.
The point Freedom was making was that we cannot predict what will happen politically in the medium to long-term future. To deal with that general point, as opposed to specific incidents from history, I would say that in actual fact political/social trends leading to dictatorship can be foreseen sufficiently in advance for non-violent opposition to be an option, and that in America, with its system of checks and balances, the chances of a “lightning coup” are somewhere between vanishingly small and non-existent (consider the OP’s attempt to outline one, and the objections raised) and that therefore, the argument that guns are a sufficient and necessary detterent to would-be tyrants is correspondingly weak.
Crime
I don’t think there’s a direct causative relationship between guns and crime. What I do think is that the tool defines the job. In both the UK and the US, as an example, the conditions exist which will prompt an individual to turn to crime. In the UK, the individual is more likely to commit unarmed burglary or B&E; in the US that individual is more likely to commit armed robbery. Clearly, the chances of someone (criminal or victim) being killed are higher in the second scenario. The ready availability of guns doesn’t make people criminals, it makes criminals more dangerous. That is the justification for saying that the US’s gun laws (and the way in which they are enforced) cause 1000s of deaths a year: the guns a re contributing, not to the existence of crime, but to its effects.
Actually, yes. WWI anyhow. Most major European states viewed the succession of Kaiser Wilhelm II with (to say the least) trepidation, as it was clear that he shared Bismark’s ambition for Germany, but not the statecraft or intelligence that had made Otto B so successful. Very quickly, young Wilhelm gave them good grounds to be afraid and people started trying to form alliances. OK, so that merely exacerbated the eventual problem, but it was a defensive manouevre intended to avert, or minimise, the threat of war.
WWII
As for WWII, the seeds for that were sown in the disastrous Treaty of Versailles which a)demanded enormous sums from Germany and b)stripped Germany of the Ruhr, it’s industrial powerhouse. Leave to simmer for 15 years, and there a lot of bitter people ready to listen when a man talks to them about national greatness, the injustice of the current situation, and the fact that it’s really the fault of the Jews. And there were people (your own W Wilson among them) who opposed the ToV for pretty much that reason.
The point Freedom was making was that we cannot predict what will happen politically in the medium to long-term future. To deal with that general point, as opposed to specific incidents from history, I would say that in actual fact political/social trends leading to dictatorship can be foreseen sufficiently in advance for non-violent opposition to be an option, and that in America, with its system of checks and balances, the chances of a “lightning coup” are somewhere between vanishingly small and non-existent (consider the OP’s attempt to outline one, and the objections raised) and that therefore, the argument that guns are a sufficient and necessary detterent to would-be tyrants is correspondingly weak.
Crime
I don’t think there’s a direct causative relationship between guns and crime. What I do think is that the tool defines the job. In both the UK and the US, as an example, the conditions exist which will prompt an individual to turn to crime. In the UK, the individual is more likely to commit unarmed burglary or B&E; in the US that individual is more likely to commit armed robbery. Clearly, the chances of someone (criminal or victim) being killed are higher in the second scenario. The ready availability of guns doesn’t make people criminals, it makes criminals more dangerous. That is the justification for saying that the US’s gun laws (and the way in which they are enforced) cause 1000s of deaths a year: the guns are contributing, not to the existence of crime, but to its effects.
