I never thought I’d see an ardent gun rights supporter argue that the worst possible use a weapon can be put to determines the overall morality of said weapon.
Life’s just full of these little surprises.
I’m astounded that people are trying to argue equivalence between a firearm and a bomb that’s capable of destroying an entire city in a few minutes.
You can support gun ownership and also be opposed to the idea of mass destruction.
ETA - “worst possible use?” I can do a lot of things with a gun. I can go target shooting with it. I can hunt animals with it. I can, if I need to, defend myself with it.
What can you do with a nuclear bomb? Two things: kill millions of civilians, or threaten other countries.
It’s not a good thing. But I think we can agree that the Nazis having the atomic bomb and the Allies *not *having the atomic bomb would have been a worse thing. Some times you pursue the lesser among evils.
I’m more afraid of your guns than I am of Russia’s nukes.
Multimegaton weapons are inefficient compared to the range of destruction, hence why modern strategic weapons are rated in the mid-hundred kiloton range or less.
The only nations which presently acknowledge nuclear arsenals are the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea (doubtful on the last). Nations capable of producing nuclear weapons include Israel (likely), the Ukraine (unlikely), South Africa (had them and disarmed), possibly Brazil and Argentina (unlikely), and Japan (culturally repugnant but technically feasible to build both weapons and ICBM delivery systems). This is hardly “all the first-world countries” by any stretch of imagination.
Count me not as an apologist for nuclear arsenals–which are useless for any practical purpose, and have existed primarily as bargaining chits between supposed superpowers, and continue to exist and proliferate mostly as a means to assert superpower status–but rather as a realist who recognizes that the development of nuclear weapons was, by the time of the Manhattan Project, inevitable. One would like to believe that rational leaders in the post-Cold War world could negotiate arsenals down to token levels; unfortunately, this has neither been the agenda nor desire of existing nuclear powers, and the continued existence of arsenals undermines any moral argument against proliferation. So, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, it goes.
Stranger
Well, I can promise you that I’m never, ever going to use my guns to hurt you. Can you get Vladimir Putin and all of his fellow Russian politicians to make the same promise to you about their nuclear bombs?
You weren’t even alive when we had to worry about the bomb.
You should be ranting against physics, not people. The basic principle of the bomb is obvious. Hell, Cleve Cartmill “invented” it in an Astounding story in 1944, I think. The bomb itself was just engineering.
I’d even venture that you owe your very existence to us dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. Not that the Japanese would have won, but that it was vital for the world to see the real impact of the bomb on a city and its inhabitants. Blowing up empty towns in the Nevada desert and any number of articles would not have had the same impact. In the past, when someone invented a weapon, they used it. The fact that no one used the bomb after the first two is one of those rare cases where humanity actually showed some intelligence.
BTW, the number of dead in Hiroshima from the bomb was 66,000. (Cite.) In 2001 alone there were over 29,000 deaths due to firearms in the US aline Cite) - mostly suicides true, but it adds up. Lots more people have died thanks to firearms than atomic bombs.
Argent, bubbe, a bomb is just a tool. It’s what you use it for that matters. I’m sure you know there’s perfectly innocent and peaceful uses for an atomic bomb.
No. I’m not kidding. I can think of several. Can you do yourself the educational task of finding two and posting them, or shall I?
It’s not, it’s just about the /worst/ thing. I agree with what you appear to be saying: That multi-megaton thermonuclear weapons designed to obliterate whole cities cannot be morally justifiable under any circumstances.
That’s not, however, Oppenheimer’s fault, that’s the fault of generations of politicians who have steadily increased nuclear arsenals and demanded higher yields, as well as better ways to deploy these weapons quickly and reliably.
The Manhattan Project made a really big bomb, that’s all. Human nature created the house of cards that is MAD. It always occurred to me that a truly moral president (or premier) - after all else had failed, and the enemy missiles were incoming - would simply sit back and refuse to counter-launch. I’m not sure if the infrastructure would even make this a possibility, what with patrolling, SRBM-armed subs and space-based weapons and so on, but if nuclear weapons on that scale can be justified, then it is only as a deterrent, and ethical judgement should be reserved for those insane or arrogant or vengeful enough to press the big red button.
When I said your guns, I didn’t mean yours in particular. I meant guns in general. I’m a lot more likely to be harmed by a gun than I am to be the victim of a nuclear weapon attack or accident.
And how is the gun going to defend you from a homicidal maniac? you brandish it and the loon goes “oh, shiny!” and forgets to kill you?
Guns are meant to kill and or incapacitate, both big and small ones.
You seem to be easily astounded.
Far more people in history have been killed by guns than have been killed by nuclear weapons. To say that the inventors of atomic weapons bear more moral culpability than the inventors of firearms requires a feat of mental gymnastics worthy of a Chinese circus act.
And you can recognize the political and social realities behind the invention of the atom bomb while still being opposed to the idea of mass destruction, as well.
The uses of an atom bomb are themselves limited (although, like firearms, they do include self defense, a point you have been assiduously avoiding, despite it being brought up by multiple posters.) However, the invention of the atom bomb is intrinsically linked to the development of atomic theory. Once the basic principles were understood, it was an easy and obvious step to the weaponization of the atom. And the benefits of the atomic theory are manifold, and of more immediate benefit to the lives of millions than is the threat of nuclear war a detriment.
OK, so that would be one guy, dead. Unfortunate, but it happens. On the other hand, any actual deployment of a nuclear bomb would result in way more than one person dying, and unlike the hypothetical maniac in the self-defense scenario, they’d mostly be civilians who didn’t do anything to deserve it.
You can go target shooting with a nuclear bomb, but it takes most of the skill out of it.
You can’t hit military targets with nuclear weapons?
Not at all - see my last post.
If nukes were ever actually used, even to attack a military target, I think it’d quickly escalate to civilians being nuked too.
Uh, no, that really doesn’t do anything to address the defense arguments that have been put forward. Not in any sort of a realistic way.
I think that if guns were available for self-defense, it would quickly escalate to people using them on non-hostiles and to further criminal enterprises. But that’s just a guess.
Which is a good thing. Less civilians means less military. Why should the civilians be let off the hook for electing or abiding their foolish leaders?
Your defense argument is that self-defense with a handgun is morally the same as self-defense with a nuclear bomb.
It’s not. As I have already said - you defend yourself with a handgun, you’re killing or injuring one other person, maybe two if you’re being attacked by two guys, maybe three, who knows. Not many more than that. You defend yourself with a nuclear bomb…how? By saying “I’ve got a nuclear bomb…ha! Don’t fuck with me!” I guess that’s a form of defense, but it still doesn’t negate the fact that nuclear bombs are fucking evil and horrible and insanely scary, which is the point I’m making with my OP. The other way of “defending” yourself with a nuclear bomb is by killing a shitload of people to show off your power. This is in no way equivalent to shooting one person with a gun to defend yourself.