Gun Rights: "Well-regulated militia" my ass
Protection from our own Government: The Ridiculous Pretense for Gun Ownership
guest post by Kavan Wolfe
As far as I have seen, detractors of gun control advance three basic arguments:
- People need guns to defend themselves and their families against other people
- People need guns to defend their country during an invasion
- People need guns to defend themselves against a tyrannical government
Today, I am going to discuss the third argument. I am not going to talk about the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, because 1) the gun control argument applies to all nations, not just the US and 2) the issue is whether people should have the right to have guns, not whether people do have said right.
Military Cohesion
So what are we really talking about here? There are basically two ways a country can get a tyrannical government: by military force (invasion or coup d'état) or the elected government becomes tyrannical. In either case, if the government does not control the majority of the military, there will likely be a(nother) coup, or a civil war. Therefore, the situation in which the people allegedly need guns to defend themselves against a tyrannical government is a situation where the military is (substantially) backing the government.
Any fantasies about substantial segments of the military joining with civilian militias in a revolt is just that: fantasy. The only realistic options are coup, civil war or military versus militias.
Weapons and Effective Soldier-to-Civilian Ratio
From Roman times through the middle ages, soldiers carried swords, spears and other melee weapons. One-on-one, a soldier with a sword has a huge advantage against a peasant with, say, a club, but if there are two or three peasants, the odds get a bit more even. Even a European knight with full plate armor and a broadsword is in trouble if it’s five- or ten-to-one. Similarly, one-on-one a modern professional soldier with his assault rifle and body armor has a significant advantage against a civilian with, say, a hunting rifle or a semi-automatic handgun; however, against five or ten small-arms-equipped civilians, the modern soldier is in trouble.
However, the modern military is not simply equipped with assault rifles. The modern military has howitzers, tanks, armored troop transports, attack choppers, fighter planes, stealth bombers, aircraft carriers, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. This changes the ratio of civilians to soldiers at which military superiority can be maintained. To be more precise, no amount of common gunslingers is any match for a single F-15, let alone an entire aircraft carrier.
This is not about assault rifles. For militias to be effective against a tyrannical government backed by a modern military, the militia would need modern weapons — is anybody seriously suggesting to legalize personal ownership of nuclear missiles???
Infrastructure and Weapons
Some people might argue that innovative militiamen could build more sophisticated weapons. This is impractical for two reasons. First, they would need weapons involving sophisticated electronics, such as laserguided bombs, heat seeking missiles, etc., which is not the kind of thing you can hack together in your basement. Second, the modern war machine is powered by an immense infrastructure. A rogue militia would be lucky to maintain electricity and running water (the government would probably cut these off); meanwhile, modern armaments require not only large amounts of refined metals but also sophisticated electronics and materials processing capabilities. It requires a massive amount of infrastructure to, for instance, refine uranium to make a nuclear weapon. This is beyond the capabilities of freedom fighters being actively hunted by their own government.
A militia would not have sufficient infrastructure or resources to build and maintain the weapons required to defend against a modern military in a revolt.
History of Tyranny
Lastly, I would like to point out that this tyrannical government business is not hypothetical. A strong case could be made that the Bush administration is a tyrannical government.
Tyrannical means: 1) of or relating to or associated with or resembling a dictatorship, 2) marked by unjust severity or arbitrary behavior, or 3) characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule.
In response to overwhelming evidence that the Bush administration broke US laws by invading its citizens privacy through warrantless wiretaps, the democratically controlled congress voted to give immunity to its accomplices (the telecoms) and a free pass to the administration. In response to even more overwhelming evidence that the Bush administration lied the country into a war that’s resulted in the deaths of more than 4000 American soldiers and who knows how many Iraqis, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked impeachment proceedings against President Bush. In response to outright admission of war crimes (i.e. torture) in Guantanamo Bay, there has been simply no response.
The US already has a tyrannical government. This whole militias-resisting-government-tyranny business is a farce.
Any rational human being knows Bubba Joe with his AR-15 and his brother Billy Joe with his shotgun, out patrolling the wildlands of Hicksville, USA in their pride-and-joy Hummer, are not going to protect ANYONE from the government. Not once the government calls up the local military installation, and rolls in the tanks. Remember a little incident in Waco, Texas, anyone? Those wingnuts were armed to the teeth, and a fat lot of good it did them …
Read the rest of my response on Kavan's site The War on Bullshit
[...] Today, I am going to discuss the third argument… [continue reading] [...]
6th August 2008 at 9:09 am | trackback from The War On Bullshit » Blog Archive » Guns, Bigger Guns and the NRA’s BullshitWondering about one thing. What are you gonna do against a tyrannical government in US? Vote it away? Won’t the “Overlords” fuck you anyway, no matter what the “little people” do or don’t? (Biggest gun wins so you’re basically fucked, depending on the ruler?)
6th August 2008 at 10:10 am | permalink |Here is another point to ponder. The ones who fervently expound the "protect ourselves from a tyrannical government" are the most ardent supporters of this country's tyrannical government.
The supporters of the NRA are happy to surrender my 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Amendment rights to stop terrorists, but they will not give up their 2nd Amendment rights for any reason. These hypocrites are also the same fools who "patrol" our border with Mexico, even though the 9/11 terrorists came into the country from Canada.
6th August 2008 at 10:27 am | permalink |@bill: Well yes. That does seem to be the problem at the moment, doesn't it? I'm afraid history doesn't have many examples of how to overthrow a government as well-armed and well-organized as the US's. The closest I can think of is the former Soviet Union, and that pretty much proceeded down a path of increasingly liberal leaders coming into power in the established government system out of economic necessity, until the people/local governments felt they had regained enough clout to overthrow it via primarily legal means …
I think things would have to get a whole hell of a lot worse in the US before people start actually thinking of their government as evil enough to overthrow … but the way the economy is heading, that may not be unthinkable. ;-)
@6r00k14n: The irony is almost overwhelming, isn't it? Oh, and I think the border patrol wingnuts are mostly in it to keep them dirty wetbacks from stealin' all our jobs, and takin' advantage of our welfare system … "terrorists" just give them an excuse to get away with it. (Because, y'know, Mexicans don't contribute anything to the US economy, no siree.)
6th August 2008 at 10:55 am | permalink |And it seems like over self-protection from US side with all the fucking starwars programs shit. Fucking building armoury against enemies that don’t fuckin exist, using US GNP building future fucking science fiction weapons against ghosts from the past like the USSR. What shit motherfucking country is the Bush clan defending America against?
6th August 2008 at 11:27 am | permalink |This argument was only valid until the advent of the 20th century when the "arms race" changed dramatically. Nowadays it is just silly.
6th August 2008 at 11:54 am | permalink |Sorry to be a party pooper but none of the 9/11 terrorists came into the US via Canada. So far a single terrorist has entered the US from Canada (Ahmed Ressam) and he's in a hole somewhere never to see the light of day. Our immigration system ain't perfect but as experience showed yours wasn't either.
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38816-2005Apr8.html
6th August 2008 at 4:38 pm | permalink |@Larry: Yup, that's pretty much it, in a nutshell.
@Leon: And here's a source to back you up. :-)
6th August 2008 at 5:01 pm | permalink |@bill, that is the key question. While the simplest answer is, yes, your fucked, the list of possibilities we have discussed is not exhaustive. Perhaps there is a strategy we haven't thought of yet — my instinct here is that it will be a strategy of the pen, not the sword, or in this case, the M-16.
@6r00k14n, I wanted to make this point as well, but I don't have any evidence to back it up beyond my own experience.
@alphabitch, children are brainwashed from a young age to 1) not question authority, 2) believe their governments protect them and 3) not think critically about their world. In this environment it's no wonder nobody notices how the government is eroding the rights. And it's not just happening in the US. As the example of copyright reform indicates, this is happening all over the world.
@bill, you remember what happened to the Roman Empire? It was not attacked from without, but rotted from within.
@Leon, trying to keep all potential evildoers out of countries the size of the US and Canada is just not pragmatically feasible. Anybody with means can enter Canada by sea somewhere in the vast, barely inhabited north, and can then enter the US somewhere along the vast, unguarded border. It makes more sense to try to catch people once they've arrived then to try to build walls around the country.
6th August 2008 at 6:23 pm | permalink |The thing to remember about this, as with all things, is that for the most part the 'issues' are determined by nutters on the extremes. The 'cold dead hands' loonies who want their private armories so they can arm the whole neighbourhood when the ruskies come rolling into town (cos that whole 'tearing down the wall' thing was just a ruse), and the nutters with their heads in the clouds without any understanding of this 'reality' thing.
Personally, I would like to live in a world without guns, but it would have to be in a world that didn't *need* guns. This world, much as I don't like it, has need of guns. A cop who's actually doing their job (not beating people up or eating donuts) shouldn't have to get into a fist fight with a knife-wielding psycho when pointing a gun will do a much better job 95% of the time.
That said, I'd not like to see existing gun controls (significantly) relaxed anywhere, because if Australians suddenly had the same right to guns as Americans, things would go to shit. And that's not the guns, that's the society. In the 'states, private handgun ownership 'works' (mostly) because there's something of a balance been attained, a consensus on 'etiquette': you don't wave a gun around in the street or someone else will shoot you with theirs. You inject guns into a society that doesn't have that understanding, then you have chaos.
That said, civvies only need at most handguns or shotguns, not assault rifles, or, y'know, artillery. Basically, guns for defending yourself and shooting furry things. The moment it's something that's pretty obviously designed to kill people (by which I mean 'many people' not general 'people'), fuck off.
6th August 2008 at 9:25 pm | permalink |@grimbles, are you implying that, with respect to guns anyway, the American populace is MORE sensible than the people of other developed nations? Traveled much lately? I mostly agree with what you said, but Americans are just about the least sensible people, on average, of any developed nation. That must be why the US has the mast religious people, the most prisoners, the second most executions and the president with the highest IQ right?
6th August 2008 at 10:04 pm | permalink |The real irony about the 9/11 terrorists is that not a single one of the measures taken would have affected them in the least. All of them were in the US with legitimate documentation and no reason to keep them out. It happens that they flew in directly, but if they had of come across from Mexico or Canada it would have made no difference, as they would have presented themselves to the border guards and then simply entered the country.
7th August 2008 at 4:28 am | permalink |On the gun thing: the US has way more murders per capita than Canada does, and most of them are using a gun. The stats just don't support the premise that guns help the situation (no matter how you manipulate them).
I'm not talking sensible, I'm talking about… experience. The point I was attempting to make is that there's something of an equilibrium established in most countries regarding, among other things, guns. If in the US gun control laws suddenly became the same as in Australia, you would still have a massive number of guns in the hands of people who are… 'less inclined' to follow the law. And hardly any guns for the lawful folk to defend themselves. You give Australians guns as easily as a US citizen, and you would have criminals rushing to get them, and a similar imbalance. Both imbalances would sort themselves out eventually, but only after a lot of chaos, and probably a lot of death.
"You inject guns into a society that doesn't have that understanding, then you have chaos." This applies to any new factor being applied to a society ill-equipped to cope with it. You give every member of an agrarian society a car, and there'll be pileups all over because there's no established road rules. And no-one knows how to drive. So it is more that the US has the common law and societal experience to deal with guns that other, gun-poor, nations don't have.
In much the same way, most nations don't hold their elections like the US. You give a parliamentary democracy an election campaign that may as well begin the moment the last election is over, and they'd not know what to do with it. Similarly, 'statesians wouldn't know how to cope with parliamentary democracy. It's not that one is inherently better than the other (another debate, and beside the point) but rather what system a society is used to.
So in a very roundabout way, people in the US are more sensible about guns, in some ways, than people elsewhere. They're sensible with regard to their peculiar way of doing things, but entirely idiotic when it comes to another society's peculiar way of doing things – thus less sensible about guns in other ways. And vice-versa.
7th August 2008 at 6:21 am | permalink |@Kavan – I'd say that one thing americans handle much better is guns. The US is a gun culture and overall we know how to handle them. You don't see to many people from the US who grew up running around shooting guns in the air to celebrate something.
7th August 2008 at 6:27 am | permalink |As stated earlier, I’m no expert on American domestic shit. I can only describe how things function in my country: A citizen cannot carry or own a gun, if this person ain’t either a hunter or a member of a gun club. Yeah you read it right. Member of a “gun club”. This means you have to take a course to become a hunter, to handle your rifle or shotgun before you get licensed to kill some poor ass creatures in the woods. But you can't have a pistol or revolver or machinegun or…..fuck etc..
7th August 2008 at 9:08 am | permalink |To own a pistol or revolver you have to be member of a special gun shooting club, hehe. But, no one can carry a gun in public and that’s the case even for the police. Yeah MF, it’s true! The police in Norway cannot carry guns. They have to have a plausible cause of some sort, like if the bad guy has one, then they can get armed, else not.
I don’t know if it’s the restrictions we have on firearms that do the trick or other causes, but the fact is you won’t get shot by a gun, if you’re a regular Joe. The only fuckers who get shot in Norway is gang members preferably in Oslo, or drunken hunters who thought they’re buddy was a moose :-)). Or fuckers who shoot themselves.
Of course Norway is a small country (about half the size of NYC) But if you look on statistic per capita, US is right up there on top. Is it because you’re trigger-happy, own to many guns, or you have too many lunatics running about, I don’t know.
But the fact is, too many people get killed by drunken, loony, jealous, angry or elseshit fuckers in the US.
Well the CDC has these stats on gun deaths in 2005: 30,694 out of 296,507,061. And in the US for a handgun, while the laws vary by state, there needs to be a permit to get one with a background check. Americans are not trigger happy nor do they own too many guns I think. Rifles/Shotguns also vary. Hell the kind of ammo you can own is regulated and in some states tracked now in large quantities.
More people get killed in all sorts of ways really. Guns are just sensationalistic in what happens.
7th August 2008 at 9:18 am | permalink |Well, hey, I see the point. But maybe you don't? In my fuckin' country you could have the background check of another planet, police telling everyone you're alright, testimony from your fucking parents and neighborhood and who knows what, it wouldn't fucking matter, you still can't buy a fucking gun.
7th August 2008 at 10:25 am | permalink |I do see the point. But the article is about the US and gun control. I was referencing this. And as I pointed out the number of actual gun deaths is very, very low. Compare it to other ways people die and it's not a significant number.
More people die in a car accident, more people die from disease.
7th August 2008 at 10:30 am | permalink |@grimbles, ahhh, now I see your point. I read your previous post as implying something different. I agree that the ratio of firearms held by criminals and law-abiding citizens has an effect, though the nature of that effect is an empirical question.
@Bill and Larry, first, the article is NOT about gun control in the US, it's about gun control in developed nations. I'm Canadian. Second, the fact that more people die from cancer than from guns is irrelevant, both pragmatically and politically (there's a war on drugs and a war on terror, but no war on cancer). The question at hand was whether having a well-armed militia could protect a citizenry from a government-turned tyrannical. Third, even in the question of self defense, the number of gun deaths is not the main factor, the question is, what is the net effect of stronger gun control, more violence or less violence? I do not claim to have answered this question, but this IS the question to address.
7th August 2008 at 10:59 am | permalink |@Kavan: well since you referenced the US directly I took it to be about that, considering the number of people who have brought up the US I think I am not alone in drawing the inference. And I do think the number of gun deaths is a factor. The reason being is you have to look at the current state and go from there. If the number of deaths is very low as it stands would stricter controls have an affect? You will never have a 0% figure. So looking at what the current state is you can figure out if stronger measures are really needed. Going by the current US statistics I don't think stricter laws would help much. What would help is better education to deal w/ accidents and the like.
I don't think gun control will do much to curb violence beyond what it does now going by the US model. What it does come down to is rule of law. In a lawless society things will be different than one under the rule of law. You can have all sorts of thing happen in both kinds of societies with very different results.
7th August 2008 at 11:47 am | permalink |The whole "protection from our own government" argument for guns is ridiculous! I'll leave it at that.
As for gun control in general, whatever. Make guns illegal, start a "War on Guns" campaign and meanwhile, anyone that chooses to, will be at home sitting on their couch, smoking a joint, and cleaning their guns. The few people that do get caught will be placed in our over crowded prison system that we can't fuckin support now. Meanwhile our government will be spending billions of dollars on a program that does little or no good.
As for hunters and the millions of dollars in revenue they generate through license, gear (of all sorts),jobs (gear manufacturing, and sales), screw it. Worst case scenario, we can open up a lemonade stand in Baghdad to make up the difference.
7th August 2008 at 1:44 pm | permalink |@Kavan Wolfe: "what is the net effect of stronger gun control"
I think you can take guns away from people and the net effect is, we’re gonna fucking kill eachother with our bare hands or fuckin` slingshots or stones and sticks, it ain’t the gun that’s the problem, it’s mankind and our way of thinking. That’s were we should start mending.
7th August 2008 at 3:31 pm | permalink |But it sure doesn’t help flinging guns around :-)
7th August 2008 at 3:39 pm | permalink |@Kavan – 'the article is NOT about gun control in the US, it's about gun control in developed nations."
"the question is, what is the net effect of stronger gun control, more violence or less violence."
Gun control in developed or underdeveloped nations, what business is it that of mine? Unless it involves genocide, the US should learn to mind it's own fuckin business. Next thing you know we'll be invading countries because we suspect them might have handguns.
7th August 2008 at 4:50 pm | permalink |Oops! "they" not "them"
7th August 2008 at 4:52 pm | permalink |@Kavan Wolfe: "… children are brainwashed from a young age to …"
True enough … and yet, quite a lot of us somehow manage to figure out how to think for ourselves … and it seems to mostly have to do with whether or not the child had parents who encouraged the kid to do so. From what I've noticed, most people who had parents like that are from relatively small families, and have relatively few (if any) children of their own … while the
'be fruitful and multiply' unwashed masses of mindless-zombie Bush voting types birth whole herds to carry on their legacy. ;-)
The numbers, in short, are not in our favor.
@grimbles: "Personally, I would like to live in a world without guns, but it would have to be in a world that didn't *need* guns."
Y'know, I can appreciate the delightfully rational basis of that sentiment, but I must say, I enjoy target shooting, and I look forward to the day when I can go out and kill a moose or caribou to put in my freezer for the winter. I'd be really sad if someone came to my house and said, "Give us all your guns, or you're going to jail."
"… if Australians suddenly had the same right to guns as Americans, things would go to shit. [&hellip] You inject guns into a society that doesn't have that understanding, then you have chaos."
On the other hand, if you injected guns into a currently mostly gun-free society, people wouldn't even blink if you also included laws that you had to have a graduation certificate from a firearms safety & basic marksmanship class before you could buy one.
And THAT little bit of additional understanding under the hats of the folks who do legally buy them would probably put a crimp in the underground resale market as well.
"… at most handguns or shotguns, not assault rifles, or, y'know, artillery."
OK, my next piece is going to be about the whole "assault rifle" issue. A true assault rifle is a military weapon with selective fire capabilities (you can choose between semi-auto, burst fire and/or full-auto). What are being regulated in the US as "assault rifles" are nothing but plain ol' semi-automatic rifles hunting rifles with "military-style" cosmetic add-ons. And if you're going big game hunting, you want a rifle, not a shotgun.
When people start bringing up "assault rifles" in gun control arguments, I fucking cringe, because it doesn't seem like 90+% of the anti-gun camp has the slightest idea what they're actually referring to when they say it.
All that said, I'm with you on the civilians not needing artillery. ;-)
@Kavan Wolfe: "… why the US has the mast religious people, the most prisoners, the second most executions and the president with the highest IQ right?"
Christ, man. Did you have to put all that in one sentence?! *hides face in shame*
@Larry: "You don't see to many people from the US who grew up running around shooting guns in the air to celebrate something."
Only at biker rallies. lol
@bill: "… too many people get killed by drunken, loony, jealous, angry or elseshit fuckers in the US."
Sure. And most of 'em are killed by cars. ;-)
@Larry: "… while the laws vary by state, there needs to be a permit to get one with a background check."
No permit required nationwide, but the background check is.
@bill: "… it wouldn't fucking matter, you still can't buy a fucking gun."
Didn't you just say earlier that you could buy a gun for hunting, or if you were in a gun club? Even if you're not allowed to bring your handgun outside the gun club, you can still kill someone with a rifle or shotgun just fine. ;-)
@Larry: "… the number of actual gun deaths is very, very low. Compare it to other ways people die and it's not a significant number."
Exactly. In 2002, "homicide" only accounted for 0.7% of all deaths in the US (and that includes all homicides, not just shootings), while "accidents" accounted for 4.4% of all deaths. (source)
Now, if you look at accidental deaths alone, according to 2001 CDC data, motor vehicle accidents accounted for 42%, and accidental firearms deaths accounted for 0.8% (and remember, "accidents" are only 4.4% of total deaths).
So really, homicide in general, and firearms deaths specifically, are a statistical non-issue … except that they're so terribly politically incorrect.
"I don't think gun control will do much to curb violence beyond what it does now going by the US model."
If anyone had actually clicked over to my article over on Kavan's site, you'd note the statistic I cited that only 10% of violent crime in the US involves an armed perpetrator … and in over 80% of those cases, the perpetrator doesn't fire, or even threaten to use the gun.
So yeah, it would make virtually NO difference whatsoever in violent crime rates if the criminals involved had no firearms.
@Rick: "… meanwhile, anyone that chooses to, will be at home sitting on their couch, smoking a joint, and cleaning their guns. The few people that do get caught will be placed in our over crowded prison system that we can't fuckin support now."
That too. Prohibition has such and excellent and successful history, no? ;-)
@bill: "… it ain’t the gun that’s the problem, it’s mankind and our way of thinking. That’s were we should start mending."
Now, THAT makes sense. ;-)
Anyhow, for anyone who wants to debate the validity of using firearms for self-defense, that's the central issue I addressed in the piece I wrote over on Kavan's site. ;-)
7th August 2008 at 8:44 pm | permalink |@Traverse Davies: My comment in response to Larry cites some statistics that suggest the situation in the US isn't as dire as you make it sound … but more to the point, the US also has much higher average population density than Canada, and even rats and chickens start killing each other when you pack them into their cages too tightly.
That, IMO, is more of a population control issue than anything to do with guns.
Also, other statistics shown here show firearms deaths as 1.2% of total US deaths in 2002 (including accidents, and intentional shootings) … now assuming 2001 and 2002 causes of death were highly similar, accidental deaths are ~4.4%, and firearms accidents are ~0.8% of that, which makes accidental firearms deaths ~0.3% of total deaths … leaving us with ~0.9% of total deaths as intentional shootings.
Yup, sounds like some kind of catastrophic epidemic to me.
7th August 2008 at 9:04 pm | permalink |ab: "I enjoy target shooting, and I look forward to the day when I can go out and kill a moose or caribou to put in my freezer for the winter"
Yeah I was a bit vague there. I meant handguns/military, ie, guns that are only really good for shooting people.
"because it doesn't seem like 90+% of the anti-gun camp has the slightest idea what they're actually referring to when they say it"
7th August 2008 at 10:37 pm | permalink |No, I mean assault rifles =p Granted I didn't specifically state basic rifles in the first group, a matter of lazy definition on my part. I shall amend to shotguns/hunting rifles. As far as how far into rifles you go, well I can't see the appeal of hunting, but I'd think for those it does interest it would be about the challenge. And a semi-auto with a $5000 sight that you can shoot a dear in the head with from a mile away doesn't seem like much of a challenge. Easy mode is never fun for long. There's a line between people killing weapons and animal killing weapons that's fairly difficult to objectively describe. But, yeah, 'that line' is what I'm talking about. A clumsy attempt at classification, perhaps. But when you have things like the SPAS-12 marketed as a sporting weapon, names can be fairly… ambiguous =p
@grimbles: See, I should have known that you, as a "Not American" would actually know what "assault rifle" meant … but for the elucidation of any anti-gun Americans who happen by this page, I'm glad I clarified. ;-)
As for hunting: When I go hunting for the first time (and it IS "when" and not "if"), I'm going for the meat, NOT the "sport". I personally think people who hunt purely for sport and challenge shouldn't hunt. People who cut off the animal's head to make a trophy, and let the body rot? No. Shouldn't be hunting.
AND … one more thing ;-) … Handguns? Please go read my piece on Kavan's site … if I'm out hiking, or snowmachining, or four-wheeling, and a dangerous animal comes around? I don't want to have to carry a rifle or shotgun with me everywhere. If someone comes into my house while I'm sleeping? I don't want to have to pick up a big-ass, heavy, cumbersome long gun while I'm half asleep.
A semi-automatic handgun is LESS dangerous than a semi-automatic rifle for ONE reason: They're less accurate. I could kill someone much further away with a rifle. With a handgun? I can only accurately shoot things at close range. And the only reason I own a handgun is for recreational target shooting, and the possibility that I might have to defend myself from an animal or human unexpectedly, and therefore at close range.
8th August 2008 at 12:05 am | permalink |@alphabitch: What I meant was, I couldn’t go into a gun store to buy a gun no matter how much recommendations I had to show for me, I wouldn’t get a gun. And I’ve never heard about a criminal who’s willing to go through all the trouble of being member of a club or take the hunter test just so they can by a rifle. But hell what do I know, some ass idiot probably has.. :-) You can buy illegal though, but that’s a fucking hassle too.
8th August 2008 at 1:38 am | permalink |@ab: "Handguns? Please go read my piece on Kavan's site"
I read it before my first comment. What I'm saying is I'd like a world where having a handgun for self-defense wouldn't be necessary, ever. I had honestly not considered the handgun:bear/moose/etc situation, as I remember hearing somewhere that a handgun just doesn't cut it against a big animal, and that Capsaicin in the face is a much better deterrent. Though, thinking about it now, that does also throw back to the whole range of effect thing you spoke about.
The reason I'd consider handguns more dangerous generally, is that while yes rifles and shotguns are better at killing people, they're a hell of a lot harder to just pull out of your pocket and shoot someone unawares. Not counting trenchcoats, you have a rifle on you, people know.
Though, that was all about the ideal, not a perceived reality on my behalf. As far as what kind of gun control, honestly, I think gun control laws – everywhere – should be smarter, not necessarily blanket restrictive (which then leads into small government vs. big government >.> Yay for can of worms). From an entirely practical standpoint, there's probably too many 2nd hand firearms in the US for anything but slow progress in removing guns from the hands that shouldn't have them (henceforth known as 'psychos') but the "firearms safety & basic marksmanship class"es you mentioned would be a good step forward IMO. From my understanding many states don't have such requirements, and its not covered federally. Making sure people know wtf they're doing would be awesome.
Honestly, while MVA deaths are higher per capita than gun deaths (about 1:3 guns:mva, according to cdc/nhtsa, not including suicides), I'd be interested to see info on usage time:deaths. What is the 'average' time you need to be using a car/gun before someone gets hurt/killed. I suspect the gun numbers would jump significantly given there's a pretty big disparity in time spent driving vs time spent shooting. The point of all that: it takes a year or more to get a car license of the non training wheels variety (interestingly, US licensing provisions are looser than Aussie ones for cars as well =p). Why not use a similar system for guns?
Ideally, a big dose of quitbeingafuckingstupiddickhead-opax in the water supply would fix things >.> Gogo, someone, come up with that!
8th August 2008 at 2:58 am | permalink |I seem to recall reading something some time back that most gun related deaths involve handguns. I think it had to do with their concealability and the fact that when it involves an accident or a crime of passion it more likely involves a handgun.
8th August 2008 at 3:40 am | permalink |If nothing else could previously convince people that the "well regulated militia" bullshit was… bullshit then this should: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n1rqHo4XyM
Yeah, let's all get some rifles and handguns and fight against a government that is capable of that.
8th August 2008 at 4:21 am | permalink |@bill: Ah, I see. Well, criminals in this country can't get guns because they fail the background test … but you can buy a gun from a private individual, with no restrictions.
@grimbles: The MVA/gun 3:1 ratio you mention includes law enforcement shooting people in the line of duty … even the gun control nuts in the US don't say police shouldn't be allowed to have guns. I think if you only included criminal and accidental gun deaths, the ratio would make cars look much worse. ;-)
And I have no problem whatsoever with the idea of mandatory training classes. People freak about "gun licenses" because they think the gov't could use licensing as a way of tracking down gun owners when they decide to take away all our guns and become fascist dictators.
Now, to that, I find it rather telling that the gov't who's pushed us furthest toward an indisputably fascist system also happens to be supported by all the gun nuts, because they're dismantling every other civil liberty we have except the 2nd Amendment. What does that tell me? Oh, right. It tells me Kavan was SO right with this article, even the government doesn't give a shit about Jim Bob and Billy Joe's home arsenal. hehe
@Larry: That's probably also helped by the fact that *total* gun deaths include police shootings, and unless they're in a standoff and/or call in backup, cops mostly have handguns at hand.
@David: Argh. Dialup sucks. Will watch later.
8th August 2008 at 10:46 am | permalink |@ab duh, i'd not thought about police shooting. Though, tit-for-tat, police would have less need to shoot people with less guns around the place =p Nitpicking aside, the key part of that paragraph wasn't the raw numbers, but the numbers over usage time.
"a way of tracking down gun owners when they decide to take away all our guns and become fascist dictators." Which is again about the idiocy of the militia argument. They don't need to track you down to take your gun. If you're a threat, they wait til you try to be all macho, shoot you in the face, and take your gun… from your 'cold dead hands' >.>
"but you can buy a gun from a private individual, with no restrictions."
That I did not know. I thought it read… wait, no that was about restrictions for individual states across state lines. So Ned Flanders can buy all the guns he likes, and supplement his income by selling them to sociopaths, legally? O.o
"Argh. Dialup sucks."
I'm torn between sympathy and wanting to laugh evilly at your expense =p
"Yeah, let's all get some rifles and handguns and fight against a government that is capable of that."
8th August 2008 at 8:40 pm | permalink |That's only an issue if you're not living locally, or if they can get away with a 1984 stunt and blame it on Russia or someone. What you need to worry about is MOABs, cluster bombs, cruise missiles. Conventional weapons that can fuck you up much better.
I guess a government might use neutron bombs locally, but you would have to have really pissed them off. And Joe Hicksville isn't that annoying. Maybe they'd bomb Texas for fun though.
@abitch: Well I don't know what the fuck you’re talking about, but I guess it make sense since you’re obviously more sober than me..? :-)
9th August 2008 at 1:43 am | permalink |yeeehay, guns. Give me one. I'll shoot yea motherfuckers asses of.!
9th August 2008 at 1:51 am | permalink |hehehehehe
9th August 2008 at 1:58 am | permalink |"obviously more sober than me"
9th August 2008 at 2:45 am | permalink |Hmm… triple post. Has anyone ever been less sober? =p
I’m very, very, ashamed today. Yesterday was a big party day here in my hometown, so everything posted yesterday is hereby taken back, back to an extremely embarrassed asshole. Sorry guys.
9th August 2008 at 6:48 am | permalink |@bill – No worries Bill. I hope you had fun.
9th August 2008 at 7:48 am | permalink |@Rick: I did, thanks.
9th August 2008 at 10:04 am | permalink |@alphabitch: If you’re a registered criminal you can’t buy guns here either, but not every criminal is in the police records. Also if you drink much (for instance been in the drunk tank) you can’t buy a gun, which certainly rules me out :-))
9th August 2008 at 11:02 am | permalink |@grimbles: re: police shootings … Well yes, if citizens didn't have guns everywhere, the police wouldn't be so trigger happy, but next time I feel like digging through my statistics collection I'll post the one about the number of police shootings of innocent/unarmed people vs. the number of private citizens who shoot innocent/unarmed people in (mistaken) self defense. ;-) I gots a tit for every one of your tats! hehehe
Now, if you want to include criminals shooting people, I've already regurgitated a fuck ton of numbers about how often that happens … and they don't even include the fact that in most of those relatively rare cases, the "bad guys" are shooting each other, which I have a hard time feeling bad about. ;-)
re: private gun sales … Well no, if some guy bought a fuck ton of guns, and re-sold them all privately, he'd get busted sooner or later for being a "gun dealer" without a license, and that's a big bust. There are limits to how many guns you can sell a year (and where/how you sell them) before you need a dealer's license, which is why a lot of gun collectors get dealer's licenses, even though they're not actually professional dealers. If you go to gun shows regularly, and set up your own table to sell or trade from your collection, you're well-advised to have a license.
But if Ned Flanders owned a few guns, and decided he didn't want a couple of them anymore, he sell/trade/get rid of them pretty much however he wanted (I imagine he'd be in trouble if he knowingly sold/gave/traded one to a felon or a minor, but beyond that pretty much anything goes). For instance, I once traded a handgun and a case of beer to a friend who helped me fix a transmission, paid for all the parts, and then paid for a professional mechanic to fix the part we screwed up, hehe.
@bill: re: drunkeness … No worries. I'm the last one to have any right to give someone shit about that. lol
re: criminals owning guns … Here you can't legally own a gun if you're a convicted felon, but the drunk tank by itself doesn't count for that.
10th August 2008 at 1:41 pm | permalink |@ab: "I gots a tit for every one of your tats!"
10th August 2008 at 8:26 pm | permalink |Given I have zero tats… *cough*
=p
@grimbles: *wonders if grimbles is just being difficult, or if she's missing an entry in her slang dictionary*
11th August 2008 at 12:33 pm | permalink |@ab:
Tat – tattoo, ink, etc
Tit – breast, boob, bazoonga, etc
Also, it's probably both, not just either/or =)
11th August 2008 at 7:58 pm | permalink |*facepalm* I knew that. heh
Well, I guess I've got you beat on tits and tats both, eh? ;-)
12th August 2008 at 9:11 am | permalink |Well I'm not sure, you said tit for every one of my tats. The latter figure being 0, so in the interests of being a pedantic smart-arse that would imply 0 for the first number as well =p
Reality is far less interesting than the distortions of it enabled by pointless wordplay >.>
12th August 2008 at 10:38 am | permalink |