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From: dbongard@netcom.com (Dan Bongard)
Subject: Re: Quake, Violence, Guns, Constitution, et al
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Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:04:13 GMT
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Christophe Weibel (weibel@dma.epfl.ch) wrote:
: Dan Bongard wrote:

: Excuse me, I couldn't help noticing you made a small error in logic
: here:

Apparently you can't tell the difference between logical errors and
differences of opinion.

:>: Germans had it just as well as any other country in the middle of a war.

:> Except for the gays, gypsies, jews, communists, pornographers, racial
:> minorities, and anti-government activists. Life was "good" for good
:> little Nazis like yourself, but bad for anybody who thought for themselves
:> or had the misfortune to be a member of a group the government didn't like.

: Okay, so it's wrong oppressing and killing people you don't like.

It is wrong to kill and oppress people simply because you don't like
them. It is wrong to attempt to kill or oppress anybody who isn't
taking hostile action against you (attempting to strip you of rights,
life, or property).

:> Exactly indeed. We (meaning people unlike yourself) need guns
:> to protect against the day when a fool like yourself votes the next
:> Hitler into office.

: Oh? And what happened to the fact you're not supposed to oppress and
: kill people you don't like?

Nothing happened to it. Could you please point to where, in the sentence
you quoted, I suggested killing or oppressing people I don't like? I
am suggesting killing people who are attempting to unjustly strip me, or
my fellow citizens, of rights, property, or life. There is a world
of difference between killing somebody you "don't like" and killing (for
example) the staff of a death camp. 

: Who does decide if the president is "the next Hitler"?

Individual citizens.

: Yourself?

Whomever. Obviously resistance is more likely to work if there are
more people interested in resisting.

: Maybe everybody doesn't agree.

Why do I care? If the government attempts to kill or imprison me 
unjustly, I will use lethal force to defend my rights and property.
That represents no threat to anyone who is not aiding the government's
assault on my person. Those people who do aid the government (given
the above circumstances) forfeit their rights by attempting to strip
me of mine.

: Especially if he was elected.

Whether he was elected is irrelevant, unless you're suggesting that
Hitler was a worthy leader and no German citizen would have been
justified in attempting to kill or overthrow him violently. A
dictator may very well have the support of the majority of the 
population, but that is irrelevant -- the fact that the 'majority'
feel I deserve to be stripped of my rights is of no concern to me.
Human rights are not up for a vote. I don't lose my right to free
speech, or self defense, or due process, simply because 51% of the
voting population has their heads up their asses.

: Of course, the United States should never become a dictature. 

Why on earth not? Name one thing about the United States that 
prevents it from becoming a dictatorship. 

: But there are some people who think it is a dictature now.

In some senses they are correct. You can be stripped of your 
property without benefit of trial, searched without a warrant,
and imprisoned for exercising basic rights that have no harmful
effect on anybody. Things could obviously be a lot worse, but
there are many elements of totalitarian government already in place.

: And who use weapons to "defend" themselves. 

If government agents decided to kick down my door and perform a 
quick warantless search, I would have no problem shooting them.

: One of these people was named Timothy McVeigh.

No, one of "those people" was not Timothy McVeigh. Timothy McVeigh
used a weapon of mass destruction against a large number of people,
most of them innocent of any wrongdoing. A large number of children
were killed in the blast. In no sense of the word can this be
considered either moral or "self-defense". McVeigh should have 
taken care to assure that only those people who threatened him,
and their co-conspirators, were injured or killed. Mass slaughter
of innocents is never justified, whether it is being carried out
by private citizens or (as is usually the case) government-backed
military.

By the way (to those people who love to hate Tim McVeigh) -- how
do you rationalize imprisoning Tim McVeigh while bomber pilots from
WWII, Korea, and Vietnam are walking around free? We killed millions
of innocent civilians in Vietnam -- don't you think somebody should
be jailed or executed for that? Like, for instance, the politicians
and military men who supported the action?

: I hope you'll understand it's a bit of a caricature, but all he really
: did was using weapons to defend himself against what he thought was a
: dictature.

Of course I understand that it is a caricature. The pro-totalitarian,
anti-gun faction in this country has been associating all patriots
and libertarians with mass murders since the day the bomb went off.
Hitler had his Jews; you have the militia groups. McVeigh was a
mass murderer -- there is no way bombing a civilian target can be
construed as "self-defense" unless the entirety of the staff were
acting against you.

: The second amendment is not necessary to make a good country. 

Neither is free speech or due process, if you have a sufficiently
Nazi-like idea of what a "good country" is. If you want a truly
free country, where the people are safe from their government, you
need a second amendment. Use your brain -- if the civilian populace
is unarmed, what stops the government from doing whatever it wishes
to do to its citizens? Nothing. That's why there is a second amendment.
If there is no right to free speech, what stops the government from
enacting laws to squelch free thought and anti-government speech?
Nothing. That's why there is a right to free speech. Why is it 
that you see value in free speech, but not in self-defense? If a 
cop tried to kill you (because you were black, let us say, and he didn't
care for your kind) what would you do? Talk him to death? No. You
would die, because you couldn't defend yourself, and the cop would
get off scot free by claiming that you represented a threat.

: Few countries in the world have such a law.

Which would be impressive, if there was a country on the Earth that
I thought was 'better' than this one (or, rather, better than this
country COULD BE if people paid attention to the Constitution
occasionally). I would also like to point out that most of the
countries of the world have been the victims of dictatorship within
the last three generations. Would that have happened if the
populations were armed? Probably not. America, as envisioned in
the Constitution, would be the most free and prosperous nation in the
world. So far we've only got the second of those two things, and we
are actively moving away from the first.

: You can say the lack of it encourages dictature.

That much is obvious.

: I prefer to say that the second amendment encourages anarchy.

Anarchy is the absence of government. "Encouraging anarchy" simply
means "encouraging less government control". Yes, the second amendment
DOES encourage that, which is one of the many reasons I support it.

Are you familiar with the concept of "checks and balances"? Probably
not, since it doesn't exist in the US today. The second amendment
is a check on government power; the police are a check on abuse of
the second amendment. The two things are supposed to balance out -- it
prevents the state from beoming too powerful while at the same time
maintaining domestic tranquility. Eliminating guns removes half of
this system. You might as well dissolve the Supreme Court, as well,
since you obviously trust the legislative and executive branches
to always do the right thing.

: Because any good citizen who thinks he has the right for himself
: can be dangerous.

Any citizen can be dangerous anyway. Use you brain. Remember Tim
McVeigh? The guy you falsely held up as an example of my kind of
patriotism? Did he use a gun? No, dumbass, he didn't -- he built
a big-ass bomb out of gardening supplies. How will banning guns
stop people like him from continuing to do what they have been
doing? Answer: it won't. In fact, that increase in totalitarian
control that gun control represents will only encourage more
and more people like McVeigh to take action. 

There is zero evidence that a massively armed population will
lead to anarchy and mass murder. We have been a heavily armed 
civilian populace here in the USA ever since our ancestors got
off the boat, and anarchy and mass murder among the cililian
populace have thus far been rare. The government, on the other 
hand, has murdered millions of innocent civilians in that time
while simultaneously ignoring the rules for proper government
behavior. What is wrong with your thinking that you trust the
government with guns, bombs, planes, and nuclear weapons, but
you don't trust me with a handgun?

: And one person who's mistaking is much more possible, than
: millions of people voting for the next Hitler. 

By voting for Hitler the Germans indirectly killed thirty 
million people and ruined the infrastructures of several
countries. The record for handgun murder in this country stands
at about two dozen, with most gun owners never killing anyone.

Obviously it is more likely for a gun to wind up in the hands of
a criminal than it is for the next Hitler to be elected. But
the risks involved in totalitarian government -- particularly one
armed with nukes, like us -- is great enough that the risk of
handguns is trivial in comparason. Particularly in light of the
fact that mass murderers like McVeigh or your local loony ex-postal
worker could still accomplish their goals with homemade explosives
if guns were banned.

What you are saying is "it is better to risk electing a dictator to
a position capable of destroying the world than it is to risk
letting guns fall into the hands of a few dozen homicidal maniacs".
I hope you realize how insane your position is.

: If I had to chose between the sanity of the government or the sanity
: of a person which woluld be choosen randomly, I would trust the
: government.

You are either a fool, or simply ignorant of history. You also lack
any sense of proportion, in that you equate the destructive power
of one man with a handgun with that of the government, police, and
armies of the United States government. The US government kills more
people in the average year than all the rest of us combined.

:> If every adult man and woman in the country had a gun this country would
:> have 200 MILLION potential rebels if the government went to far. Even if
:> only one percent of them took action they would still outnumber the
:> conventional armed forces. That is easily enough to overthrow any tyrant.

: I look to this a 200 million people who could very easily kill somebody
: else if angry. 

And 200 million people who could defend themselves if an angry man
decided to kill them. Whereas, in your world, we would be a nation
of 200 million sheep at the mercy of any man with a gun or a bomb.

: It exists.

Of course it exists. So does the possibility of the US government
becoming a totalitarian regime, even if you DO prefer to stick your
head in the sand and avoid facing that fact.

: Wasn't there a man somewhere in Florida who shoot a kid because
: the kid had threw water at him with a squirt gun?

And there was a cop in San Diego who shot a man who was holding a 
garden weasel in "a threatening manner". Others have shot unarmed
men. Police in LA, New York, Atlanta, and other cities have burst
into houses and killed some of the people living in them based on
the mistaken belief that there were drugs in the house. Going back
a generation, you have national guard troops firing on unarmed
protesters and armed soldiers murdering millions of Vietnamese,
Laotian, and Cambodian citizens.

Could you explain again why you trust the government with guns,
but not the civilian populace of the country?

: He said: "I don't like to be wet!"... Again, an extreme example, but
: this one can happen ONLY if you consider it normal for people to carry
: a gun everywhere.

Bullshit. It can still happen; it will simply be a cop, or a member
of the armed forces, or a criminal with an illegally purchased 
weapons, instead of a crazy civilian. Guns aren't going to mysteriously
disappear if you make them illegal, your know. Remember that bank
robbery in LA where the crooks used body armor and AK-47s? AK-47s
have been illegal for years. You would think this would be a clue for
the gun control nuts, but it went right over most of your heads.

: There are always people with different political views, and I feel it's
: much safer if people who don't have the idea of violence in their minds
: have power. 

WHEN HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED? Are you brain dead? When have we _ever_
had political leadership that was afraid to use violence? Furthermore
what the _hell_ makes you think that banning handguns will have ANY
effect on the idea of violence? Violence has been around roughly
300 million years, nimrod. It isn't going to cease to exist simply
because a bunch of dipshits with their heads up their asses and their
hands on the ballot sheet decide to ban the only physical protection
they have against their government. It will simply take another form.

: They will try to find other ways of talking.

So basically what you are saying here is that, for the entire history
of the United States, we have been shooting at each other instead
of using peaceful political techniques? And that, by banning 
handguns, we will suddenly all mutate into peaceful diplomats 
incapable of violence? Could you please explain where this insane
theory of yours came from?

: I DO say that saying everybody should carry a weapon everywhere is
: putting violence in their minds. See following.

Are you basing this opinion on anything other than government 
propaganda? Try taking a psychology course sometime.

:> Take the above situation: a black man encounters a known KKK member
:> who is a good shot. Unless the KKK member is a violent criminal (by no
:> means a guaranteed fact) the black man is safe. If the KKK guy is a
:> violent criminal, and has a gun, the black guy is dead -- UNLESS the 
:> black guy also has a gun. All that banning guns does is ensure that
:> only criminals will have guns. The situation for the black man is
:> worse, not better, because the only circumstance under which he would
:> be in any danger is on where the KKK guys was willing to break the
:> law. If a man is willing to murder in cold blood he's not likely to
:> balk at an illegal weapons purchase.

:> The best possible situation is for those people who know they are in danger
:> to possess the means to defend themselves. That means guns.

: And then the man with more training wins. 

Not always. In any case, the obvious solution is to train yourself.

: Sadly, the KKK guy will probably be more trained than the black man.

So what you are saying is that a chance of living (when the black man
is armed) is WORSE than NO chance of living (when the black man is
unarmed). That's very interesting. What's next? The 'revelation' that
the Tooth Fairy exists?

: After all, he wants to kill somebody. Or do you suggest black people
: should be trained from birth to shoot at KKK guys?

It is each person's responsibility to know how to defend themselves.
Any chance of living, no matter how small, is better than the "certain
death" situation you may find yourself in if you go unarmed. Would you
rather go armed have a 70%, or 50%, or 10%, or even 1% chance of
surviving an encounter with a man determined to kill you, or would you
rather just get killed and die with the knowledge that you were "moral"
enough to not carry a gun?

: I don't agree with what you say that the KKK guy is willing to break the
: law if he's willing to murder in cold blood.

The complete lack of logic in the above statement is self-apparent,
since murder is illegal.

: In his mind, the fact he has the right to carry a weapon everywhere
: encourages him to USE his gun. 

I assume that you have owned a gun, felt these alleged violent feelings,
and shot somebody? Because otherwise you're just talking out your ass.
I've owned guns, never shot anybody, and never wanted to shoot anybody.
How is this possible, you ask? It is possible because guns do not
encourage violence.

: After all, what's the use of allowing people to carry a weapon if
: they should never use it?

By that logic everybody with life insurance should be looking for 
a chance to get killed and everybody with car insurance should
feel absolutely no hesitation about crashing into other people.
You carry a gun in case you need it to defend yourself. It is
"life insurance" in a more direct sense of the word. It is not
(as you seem to see it) an evil little demon that sits there in
its holster whispering "kill kill kill!" in your ear. You are 
getting your idea of guns from campaign commercials.

: He will think it over, first using his gun first if his attacked, and
: then gradually, of shooting people he doesn't like, and so on. 

I'm sorry, but there isn't a shred of empirical evidence or theory
that backs up this insane idea of yours. 

: But if you don't say to him: "You should be carrying a gun because
: the second amendment allows it", he may never think of murdering
: anybody, or even buying a gun.

Tell me, what's the rent like in Fantasyland? The desire (or lack
thereof) of a KKK member to kill a black man has nothing to do
with whether the KKK member is carrying a gun. Which is why most
of the black people murdered by the KKK have been beaten to death
or hung, not shot.

Furthermore I would like to point out that, under current US law,
it is illegal for convicted felons to buy a handgun. Yet millions
of them do anyway. Which pretty much shoots down your "they wouldn't
think of buying guns" theory (as if it needed to be shot down).

[Re: May 68]
: Now, suppose there had been a second amendment in France. Then students
: wouldn't have thrown bricks on the police. They would have used guns.

I see your sense of history doesn't extend any further back than
the late seventies. There have been plenty of violent student/police
clashes in this country, and the students behave as they do anywhere
else (initially peaceful, possibly some rock or brick throwing if
things get violent, yelling insults, etc). Now the _government_ has
been inclined to shoot at the students from time to time, but the
students have thus far not taken to guns. 

-- Dan
