Libertarian: I appreciate you are under siege here, but you confused me with a few statements back on page one. If you have not yet seen my request for clarification near the bottom of that some page, could you please take a moment to make your position a bit clearer to me?
Lib, the more courageous person is the one who does not need a gun to stop feeling afraid. Getting a gun because you’re afraid to go without one is giving in to your fear, not mitigating it and it certainly isn’t coping with your fear, nor is it defeating your fear.
Waverly,
Was this what you meant?
It is my worthless opinion that laws ought to be based on the noncoercion ethic, and not on popular appeal.
Jab,
I respect your opinion, but I’m not certain it has any basis in fact.
AMEN. Carrying a concealed weapon is ineffective. A gun an only a deterrent when it is visible.
On the other hand, you can kill with it even if you never show it.
IMO, carrying concealed is evidence of criminal intent. Only bad guys want to be deadly and not have anyone know about it.
tj
This is wrong as a point of logic. If a criminal worries that people MAY be armed, that worry could deter him. (By comparison with a criminal knowing for sure that nobody else has a gun, because concealed carry is illegal.)
It’s also wrong in application. John Lott’s statistics show that concealed carry laws do have the effect of reducing violent crime. See More Guns, Less Crime.
As RTFirefly pointed out earlier in the thread, it is curious for a poster named “Libertarian” to be suggesting that the Federal Government needs to step in and protect poor beleaguered citizens on busses everywhere by altering State firearm regulations.
I suppose the next step is to change the laws of all nations to allow gun-toting 'mericans to pack heat on all international planes, trains & automobiles. Right?
No American should find themselves in a foreign land without a handgun!
Firearms (and concealed carry laws) are not the solution to this problem. We need to reverse the last 20 years of pacifist and non-involvement indoctrination. That, and we need to pet cute furry animals more often.
Tejota, you’re all kinds of wrong. Look at Libertarian’s example of the two airline scenarios to contemplate the concept of deterrence.
If concealed carry = intent to burglar or kill, then I suppose putting pants over your penis = Intent to Rape!
Right, now to the rest of use rooted in reality, hiding something portrays guilt whilst leaving something in the open portrays innocence.
John Lott’s statistics show nothing other than his basic dishonesty. But you know this, because you and I (and others) have already had a conversation about that in another thread. Lott’s numbers were analyzed and showing to be intentionally misleading in that thread. Citing a known discredited source says more to me about you than it does about facts.
It is evident that they liklihood of being caught and punished doesn’t deter criminals, so it’s a stretch to think that the mere chance of a random encounter with an armed civilian is going to what the threat of formal law enforcment can’t.
Arguments about the ‘deterent’ effect of weapons always end up with the weapon being waved or pointed at an attacker.
Remember Dr. Strangelove? A secret deterrent is an oxymoron. 
tj
This is a joke, right?
Do you think a crazy person bent on causing havoc is going to say to himself: “Damn, I wish I could carry this pistol with me… but I don’t have a permit.” ?
CCW laws only affect those who care about the law, ie law abiding citizens.
and to Liberterian in regards to the plane,
Alright lets start with guidelines.
Its in first class, 15 passengers, 5 Terrorists 10 good guys.
Pilots armed, no barracaded door.
Terrorists and good guys similarly trained and armed.
Terrorists stand up,shoot 3 rounds then 4 rush the cockpit and one stays and starts shooting. The terrorists will be injure/kill at least 8 good guys. One terrorist stays behind and continues engaging the remaining passengers injuring two more before being slain. Body count, 10 good guys 1 terrorist. The other terrorists rush the cockpit and engage the pilots. The time frame is approximatly 15 seconds between first shots and this time. The pilots are unaware of what is happening and possibly injure one or two terrorists as they enter. This leaves us 2-3 armed terrorists guarding a door. By the time the other passengers are aware of what has transpired, the plane is already heading towards the Sears tower and boom.
First of all, Lott’s numbers haven’t been “shown to be intentionally misleading.” Nobody has disputed any of Lott’s numbers. It is true that some other researchers have come to different conclusions, in each case based on flimsier statistics than Lott used.
Second, I have read Lott’s book as well as papers by several of his critics as well as Lott’s response to some critics. In my opinion, Lott has far the better of the argument. (Being a professional actuary, I know something about statistical analysis.) Lott did a comprehensive study of a large data base. His typical critic used a small subset of the same data, and then reaqched a different conclusion based on that small subset of data. Naturally, a study based on the full data base is more reliable.
This first half of this syllogism (underlined) is remarkably false. Who ever said that the threat of capture and punishment isn’t a deterrent? What a bizarre idea! It seems to contradict most of human history. Do you have a cite? (Is it possible, Tejota, that you meant to say that the threat of punishment isn’t a perfect deterrent?)
Politicians and celebrities from George Bush and Hillary Clinton on down walk around with armed guards. They are considered to be a deterrent, although they almost never draw their weapons.
Dr. Strangelove was fiction. An uncertain risk can easily be a deterrent.
Yes, that was the question. I’m not sure why you throw the word ‘worthless’ in there. I may disagree, but certainly I haven’t belittled your opinion in any way.
I detect a conundrum of sorts. Who is it deciding what laws constitute coercion? And if it is not the majority, couldn’t this necessarily result in the preponderance of citizens having an unpopular law enforced upon them? To put this in terms relevant to the OP, if I want to ride a bus free of any weapons and the majority of people agree with me, we experience coercion if we are then forced to ride a bus where everyone is armed. I don’t totally understand your position, but I suggest that it may be that you simply view laws that conflict with your agenda as coercion, without taking into full account what impact this agenda has on the rights of others.
Besides, I thought libertarians loved property rights. Since when don’t I have the right to tell you to check your gun at the door?
It is the person who consents (or not) to be governed.
There are no other rights. Rights are an attribute of property. I have no problem with the owner of property making whatever rules he wishes with respect to it.
So those who decide what laws present no danger of coercion is a group consisting of: those who have consented to be governed and those who have not consented to be governed. Not only does this sound like we are talking about everyone, but it provides no method to settle the inevitable disagreement as to how things should be done. Are we back to some form of rule by majority opinion? I thought you stated earlier that this method was not always good enough, as it didn’t provide adequate protection against coercive laws. I am sincerely confused.
It’s okay, Waverly. I understand. It is especially difficult to understand something when preconceived notions crowd out new ideas. Maybe start here with Joseph Knight’s excellent brief essay. But open your mind and don’t read too much between the lines. It’s one of those things that can make kids go, “Oh yeah,” and grownups go, “Huh?” The tendency is to overcomplicate a simple idea.
jab1: I doubt very much that Lib 's suggested law would make it mandatory for bus companies to permit passengers to arm themselves. That would restrict Greyhound’s liberty to run their business as they see fit. Libertarians do not believe in government restrictions on free enterprise, right?
Libertarian: We believe that coercion should be restricted. In fact, supressed. No matter where. No matter who. No matter why. Period.
I hope you understand my confusion about your previous stance.
I guess it was with respect to the notion of something real (private property) versus something abstract (so-called public property). When ownership can be established, the matter of rights is settled; when not, the matter of rights is up in the air like a B5 chord at the end of a song in D minor.
Oh, no. . .not the Joseph Knight essay! The very essence of his philosophy is naive and corrupt at the same time. He bases everything on “honestly acquired property”. There is no such beast.
Read the words of Thomas Jefferson on this matter for an interesting insight on the nature of property rights as conceived by the Great Libertarian Himself:
“A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant.”
So you see, the Indians had no natural right to their property because they didn’t have an advanced, modern (i.e., “American”) Government :rolleyes:. Until then, the property is “in the body of the nation”. Which sounds an awful lot like “public property” to me.
And, of course, the small parcel of land you are living on right now was “honestly acquired”, right?
I am a libertarian, but this type of thinking gets my goat.
Oh, well, I don’t want to veer to far off topic.