Fair enough. I let him get my goat and shouldn’t have. That being said, in multiple posts on this thread he’s accused me of being a liar.
Shouldn’t he get a warning for that? Particularly since he’s already been warned on this thread?
Ask me next month. For the record, ChickenLegs, you cannot call other posters liars in this forum. That entire issue looks like a misunderstanding anyway, but accusations of lying aren’t permitted in GD.
He stands on a wall and says nothing is going to hurt you tonight. All buck 60 of him, soaking wet and shaking with righteousness.
I am a strong advocate for concealed-carry laws, but I view them as giving people the choice to go about armed if they wish. I don’t see how it is a duty that all should engage in, nor that this has ever been the case. Being armed is a right, but not a duty, as are all other rights.
In the event you return to this thread, could you expand on your reasoning?
The weirdest part of this isn’t the obvious correlation between low crime rates and “outsourcing this duty to others” (i.e., a strong government). The weirdest part of this isn’t your advocacy of cultural norms (the individual rather than the state is responsible for crime prevention) that historically have led to rampant violence.
No. The weirdest part of this is the implication that this duty is tied to the testicles.
Help me understand why you think this duty falls to men and not to women. What about gay men, do they have the same duty? Trans-men? Trans-women? What’s the mechanism for this duty?
If the duty’s relationship to the y chromosome is supernatural or superstitious or religious, then of course it’s something that you won’t be able to explain. But it equally has no part in discussion of public policy, any more than your (possible, I dunno) belief in Thetans would have any place in discussion of public policy.
Yet this kis perception exists and is surprisingly prevelant. I had quite the argument with a normally rational gun owning friend when I told him I was taking CCW classes. He lectured me that I would be morally and legally bound to defend anyone in distress that I happen across.
I’ve met a few others with similar misunderstandings since.
Hah, that’s a good one. When I got my CCW permit, it didn’t come with a super hero uniform as well.
Well, in the UK, “violent crime” encompasses things that make you wish you were dead, like snubs. Also, and rather confusingly, haggis-bludgeonings.
“The most effective means possible” involves paying your taxes; it does not involve owning or carrying firearms.
It shouldn’t be an either/or proposition. We can have a strong government, with the state in charge of crime prevention and justice, but also have the means of self-defense available to citizens for those situations in which the state’s agents aren’t present. We can have fire departments and privately-owned fire extinguishers, as an analogy.
That’s alien to my experience as well. I accepted the responsibility to not carry in a few prohibited places, and the duty to have my license on my person any time I was carrying, and that’s it as far as legal duties go. I don’t know where this people come up with these cockeyed ideas.
That’s true in the general case, but there are incidents in which possessing a firearm is a better guarantor of one’s safety than the existence of a police department: namely, lethal threats that occur outside the presence of a police officer.
For your analogy to work, fire extinguishers would be exemplary tools for setting fires and the preferred tool of arsonists everywhere.
Not really. In terms of self-defense, a firearm in the possession of a law-abiding citizen is equivalent to a fire extinguisher: a tool for dealing with a rare but life-threatening incident if the state apparatus tasked with the job is unable to respond in a timely manner.
Any analogy with guns (cars, alcohol, swimming pools) is flawed, because only guns are guns. I understand this. But, it should be understood that the vast majority of firearms are not used for criminal purposes.
…and fire extinguishers are likelier to be used to set a family member on fire than they are to extinguish a fire. And arsonists buying fire extinguishers are indistinguishable from homeowners buying them to protect their homes. And stolen fire extinguishers are often used to set fires. And fire extinguishers are purchased in bulk in unregulated areas then transported to areas where they’re more heavily regulated and used to set fires there.
Very few people object to a legal gun owner’s use of a gun to protect the lives of their loved ones. The objections aren’t to that: the objections are to the inevitable consequences of making guns easily available both to good guys and bad guys.
My objection is to policies that propose to deal with this…
By eliminating this…
When you find yourself in danger,
When you’re threatened by a stranger,
When it looks like you will take a lickin’, (cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck)
There is someone waiting who
Will hurry up and rescue you,
Just call…for Super Chicken! (cluck, awk!)