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From: dbongard@netcom.com (Dan Bongard)
Subject: Re: Quake, Violence, Guns, Constitution, et al
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Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 20:54:00 GMT
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Richard Smol (bl227@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:
: James R. Shiflett says:

:>> 1) Guns to protect yourself or your family. Lame argument. You run a
:>> greater risk of getting killed if you threaten to use a gun.

:> Factually incorrect, or "Dead Wrong" as some would say. Easy to say, but
:> lacking factual bases from any objective crime study.

: Violence causes violence. You point with a gun, and you cause a 
: counter-reaction. 'Nuff said.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with James, or disagreeing with him.
If you point a gun, you _do_ cause a counter-reaction. What the counter-
reaction is depends on whether the victim is armed. If he isn't, you
will either kill him, or inflict your will on him. If he _is_ armed,
you run the risk of being killed yourself if you attempt to kill him
or inflict your will on him. The victimizer now faces risk.

:>> 2) Guns to hunt. Hunting is killing. There is no need to hunt, and all it
:>> does is kill some poor animals that didn't do you any harm anyhow.

:> Death is a natural by-product of life. Nearly ALL life, even most larger
:> plant life, grows by consuming other life. Even vegetarians often eat meat
:> by-products (like Jello) without even knowing it.

: Well, what does that have to do with killing, crippling and making
: animals suffer for pure fun.

I assume you've never eaten meat in your life? And that, if you have,
every single tidbit of meat you've eaten was consumed out of a need for
nourishment, rather than because it tasted good? That you've never
left a hamburger on your plate, unfinished? That you've never killed
insects, or set out mouse traps?

The hypocrisy of people like you makes me sick. You're not opposed to
killing animals -- you're opposed to killing _cute_ animals outside
of an approved factory environment.

: Those hunters have a pretty sadistic attitude, using 'natural balance'
: or some other lame excuse.

It sounds better than "they're just dumb animals". Most hunters hunt
responsibly, and thus represent no threat to the survival and health
of the species. And, like all predators, they provide natural selection
for the weak and slow animals. Why _not_ kill a deer? What's one deer,
more or less? What if you like deer meat? 

: If they were REAL men, they'd go after those bears and deers with BARE
: hands! Animals don't have guns to shoot back. They have no defense 
: against guns, so there.

Tell me -- when did hunting become "wrong"? It used to be one of our
primary sources of protein. Is it now only permissible to kill an
animal if you keep it cooped up, force-feed it a drug-laced high-
calorie diet, and then slaughter it along with tens of thousands of
its fellow animals? Oh, wait, I forgot -- you're also allowed to kill
animals if they come into your house and annoy or frighten you. Just
so long as you don't use a gun -- god, no.

:>> 3) Guns for sporting. Use air guns, or possibly .22's.

:> Nazi's outlawed civilian gun ownership under this same reasoning. Now
:> there is a good model to follow...

: Geez, your argumentation is terribly wobbly to say the least. So guns
: should not be prohibited just because the nazis did so? I really don't
: see the connection.  

The Nazis are hardly alone. Every oppressive regime in history has 
restricted and/or banned private ownership of weapons. Here's a clue:
when the government has all the guns and the civilian populace has
none -- what, exactly, prevents the government from doing whatever
it wants to you? Innate human goodness? 

And, by the way, the reason guns shouldn't be prohibited is the same
reason that newspaper publishing or the practice of religion shouldn't
be prohibited -- because the Bill of Rights explicitly forbids the
government from restricting those rights. The second amendment doesn't
protect the right to keep and bear Government Approved arms. It 
protects the right to keep and bear weapons in general. Try to remember
that the BoR was written at a time when private citizens owned their
own cannon and warships -- the best weapons available to them.

:>> 4) Guns to prevent your country from turning into a dictator controlled
:>> terror regime. Are the persons that came up with this one really that
:>> stupid?

:> I guess so, maybe only 9 of the 10 Bill of Rights were "smart".

: Please come up with proper arguments instead of putting in such
: senseless one-liners. 

He was simply pointing out that the whole REASON for the second amendment
was to give the civilian populace the ability to overthrow the government
if it because oppressive.

: What does freedom have to do with the right of owning a device with 
: which you can deny someone else the right to LIVE.  

You must live in a fantasy world where no governments or criminals
ever do anything bad. In the real world, governments and criminals
quite often act to unjustly injure, imprison, or murder innocents.
The "freedom" guns grant you is the freedom from being murdered or harmed
yourself. Who has a greater right to live -- an ordinary civilian,
or a soldier attempting to murder that civilian for his posessions?
It is a moot point, unless the civilian has a gun, because that
soldier is going to murder him and take his possessions. But at least
the civilian can die knowing that he was "moral" enough to not own a gun.

:>> 6) Stinky, realize that guns have a purpose that has nothing to do
:>> with sporting or hunting. They're there to kill. There is no bloody
:>> need to own a Desert Eagle or a Beretta 93F to do some target practice.
:>> And like I said, hunting is killing.

:> Guns kill. People with guns kill. But the greatest number of gun victims
:> were unarmed. When intended victims are armed their chances of surviving a
:> home intrusion or other violent crime incident are very greatly enhanced --
:> and EXTREMELY rare are the cases of accidental shootings of
:> family/friends/innocents in these cases (most civilian gun owners don't
:> have the nerve to fire on a human anyway, so it is the threat of return
:> fire that drives the attacker away).

: The problem is those ARMED folx that shoot innocent victims.  

So why not ban cars, alcohol, religion, free speech, and rock music?

: It is just because guns are so easy to get that those armed folx can
: do that. If they had no guns, they wouldn't have been able to shoot
: someone. There is a lot of logic in that. 

There is no way to stop criminals from getting guns. All you can do is 
prevent law-abiding citizens from getting them. There was an amusing
exchange between a reporter and an LA policeman during that nasty
assault-rifles-and-body-armor bank robbery six months back:

Reporter: Those men are using AK-47s. Maybe we need to ban AK-47s?
Policeman: Um, AK-47s have been illegal for years. 
Reporter: Oh.

: Well, statistics are very flexible. You can lie a lot with numbers...
: There are numbers that show the opposite just as easily.

Strange that you know exactly enough to say those numbers exist, but
not actually enough to hint at what they might be.

:> I will be more willing to listen to the anti-gun crowd when they get as
:> active against governmental tyranny as they are against personal gun
:> ownership.

: I don't see the link between 'governmental tyrrany' and personal gun
: ownership.

Here's a clue: if the civilian populace is armed, there can be no 
governmental tyranny. Why? Because the government will not be more 
powerful than the civilian populace. If the populace is unarmed, what
prevents the government from herding people into concentration camps? 
Nasty editorials in the Washington Post?

See the connection now?

:>> 9) Those who have constantly come up with screwed up arguments against
:>> gun control might want to check their facts and their opinions a bit.

:> Are you up to your own challenge?

: He is right, your arguments are screwed up. Put in another way: you
: don't have any.

Two things: one, his arguments are a bit screwed up, yes, although
certainly not as much as yours. Two -- HE doesn't need to present
arguments, because he isn't suggesting anything change. The 
Constitution grants us a right to guns. If you want that right repealed,
please present some arguments for why it should be...

-- Dan
