An armed society is a polite society

[Willie Escalade]

Another article sent to me...

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17696-an-armed-society-is-a-polite-society
____________________
WILLIAM RIVERS PITT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"If only one of the teachers had a gun..."

One did. She owned several, in fact. Her son used them to kill her, her colleagues, and 20 children.

...so you'll pardon me if my respect for the "Responsible Gun Ownership" argument has taken a long walk off a short pier.

I know I know I know I know, you own an AK-47 or an AR-15 and the world didn't end...because you're responsible, right?

Is everyone you know responsible? Everyone with even fleeting access to your "Arsenal of Freedom"? Is everyone who might rob your home responsible?

...pssst...

You don't need an assault weapon. You really really really don't.

You're going to defend yourself against a government that has nuclear weapons, stealth bombers, drones, SEALs and the United States fa-chrissakes Marine Corps with your piddly-ass AR-15? Good luck with that; send me a note from the front.

Grow up.

You don't need it. You want it. End of file.

Your right to bear whatever fantastically lethal thing you set your cap to is infringing upon everyone else's right not to die in another God damned bloodbath.

You don't need it.

You want it.

There's a difference.

And that's the beginning of real reform, if you decide to accept it.

Make the very Christian decision that you will, in fact, be your brother's and sister's keeper.

You don't need an AR-15 or an AK-47.

You just want it.

Other people want them, too. See: Newtown.

Exert a little self-control over your desires. Your ability to responsibly enjoy an AR-15 is NO LONGER argument enough to defend their wide, wild availability.

This is not rocket science. This is basic humanity, and enlightened self-interest.

The old saying goes, "An armed society is a polite society."

Well, we've been an armed society - 300 million guns and counting - for a long while now.

I'm sure everyone will be very polite at the 20 funerals for those 20 kids.

Mission accomplished.

[Odelay]

Glenn Reynolds, an A-list conservative blogger speaks to this issue with a quote from the past:
“After a shooting spree,” author William Burroughs once said, “they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.” Burroughs continued: “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”
In case you didn't know, or had forgot, William Burroughs along with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg sort of defined and created the whole Beat Generation back in the 1950's. He's also famous for this:
Their life in Mexico City was not especially happy. One September afternoon in 1951, they began to drink with friends. Eventually, Mr. Burroughs, who was quite drunk, took a handgun out of his travel bag and told his wife, ”It’s time for our William Tell act.” There never had been a William Tell act, but his wife laughed and put a water glass on her head. Mr. Burroughs fired the gun. The bullet entered her brain through her forehead, killing her instantly.
As I said in another thread, these bloggers making ridiculous arguments are not to be taken seriously. Reynolds can't even scare up a good historical quote from a responsible gun owner.

[robertlouis]

Why not take it one step further and make it compulsory for every citizen to be provided at government expense with a weapon as a gift for their birth to be kept in the crib so they can get used to it and then train them in its use once they've acquired basic motor skills? Makes for maximum safety.

Same logic..... :whistle: :wiggle:

[robertlouis]

Just in case anyone comes after me for being a sanctimonious Brit who doesn't understand the issues, just let me add that I almost certainly have more indirect experience of the effects of an event like Newtown than most if not everyone on this board.

My aunt was a teacher at the primary school in Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 when Thomas Hamilton made his way into the school and shot dead 16 children and one teacher. My aunt was able to save all her pupils except one who had gone to the toilet and was shot in the corridor. That one death will haunt her for the rest of her days. She has never worked since and took early retirement when it was offered. My aunt was a robust, outgoing, fun person. She is now prematurely aged and incredibly nervous. Should she have been armed? Don't be fucking stupid!

That horrific event means that the UK, and Scotland under its semi-independent government no has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world. Yes, there have been two further events since then, but there is nothing like the carnage wreaked by guns on a daily basis in the US. Our deaths due to firearms in any measurement you want are minute by comparison.

Do I feel safer living in a country where gun ownership and use is tightly controlled? Damn right I do. Only a fool would think otherwise.

[beandip]

Quote:


"I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence," Gandhi wrote in his famous work, Doctrine of the Sword.


more here.....

http://www.naturalnews.com/038372_Gandhi.... (http://www.naturalnews.com/038372_Gandhi_nonviolence_right_to_bear_arms.html)

[trish]

So prove there's only one choice.

[Stavros]

Quote:
"I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence," Gandhi wrote in his famous work, Doctrine of the Sword.

more here.....
http://www.naturalnews.com/038372_Gandhi.... (http://www.naturalnews.com/038372_Gandhi_nonviolence_right_to_bear_arms.html)

Beandip offers a link to a website with an article written by someone called Mike Adams who has no real interest in Gandhi, and even less in the context of British India in which Gandhi wrote his article, The Doctrine of the Sword in the journal Young India in 1920. Adams has hit upon this article for the simple reason that if he can show that one of the 20th century's most famous pacifists was in fact an advocate of violence, it therefore follows, as Adams puts it
Had Gandhi been alive today and witnessed the senseless loss of life at Sandy Hook Elementary school, he would have advocated arming the principal and giving her a chance to protect innocent lives through the use of defensive violent action.
-the emphasis in bold is provided by Mr Adams

Adams and beandip can re-write history as much as they like, but not only did Gandhi not advocate violence of this kind, in the context of 20th century Connecticut, it is the opposite of what he suggested. The founding idea, is contained in the paragraphs that follows the one cutely edited by Mr Adams:

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force, which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him it was his duty to defend me even by using violence Hence it was that I took part in the Boer War, the so-called Zulu Rebellion, and the late war. Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.


But I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns the soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness only when there is power to punish: it is meaningless when it pretends to proceed form a helpless creature. A mouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces by her. I therefore appreciate the sentiment of those who cry out for the condign punishment of General Dyer and his ilk. They would tear him to pieces if they could. But I do not believe India to be helpless. I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature. Only I want to use India's and my strength for a better purpose.

Neither Connecticut nor the USA is helpless, the officials in the school were not mice being charged by a cat; arming them would not have been part of the Gandhian concept of satyagrah because he would not have believed teachers in the USA in the 21st century needed to be armed in the first place.

Dare I say it, there is a world of difference between India under British rule in 1920, and the independent USA in 2012.

Gandhi said, in the same article
Nonviolence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evildoer, but it means the putting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant...And so I am not pleading for India to practice nonviolence, because she is weak. I want her to practice nonviolence being conscious of her strength and power. No training in arms is required for realization of her strength...


beandip, attend to the sources, rather than the siren voices.


The full article by Gandhi is here:
http://www.salsa.net/peace/conv/8weekconv2-1.html

[beandip]

Aaayyyyup. Sure.

[beandip]

anyone catch what he said in 4chan? Jacked on Fanapt.

[beandip]

One more time for the stupid people here. Spoons made me fat. Chopsticks would prevent me from getting fat.

[beandip]

Once you can wrap your head around the simple idea that Lanza killed people and the gun was just the "tool" then you can begin to have an honest, legitimate discussion as to what the possible solution to this problem might be.

Until then, go here...

www.dailykos.com
www.huffingtonpost.com
or www.rededit.com

....and continue the circle jerk. A bigger spoon makes me more fat than a smaller spoon.

[GroobySteven]

Once you can wrap your head around the simple idea that Lanza killed people and the gun was just the "tool" then you can begin to have an honest, legitimate discussion as to what the possible solution to this problem might be.

Until then, go here...

www.dailykos.com (http://www.dailykos.com)
www.huffingtonpost.com (http://www.huffingtonpost.com)
or www.rededit.com (http://www.rededit.com)

....and continue the circle jerk. A bigger spoon makes me more fat than a smaller spoon.


Wrap your head around this one, Beandipshit. This isn't a board for your politics and vileness. I'm using my rights. Get the fuck out of here.

[Stavros]

Once you can wrap your head around the simple idea that Lanza killed people and the gun was just the "tool" then you can begin to have an honest, legitimate discussion as to what the possible solution to this problem might be.

....and continue the circle jerk. A bigger spoon makes me more fat than a smaller spoon.

If Lanza was indeed affected by medication, paranoia, or something psychological, but had no 'tools' other than his bare hands, would he even have gone to the school? Hypothetically, he could have strangled his mother to death if that was his first mission, but how would he have killed children and teachers with only his bare hands?

To assume that the guns were 'merely tools' when intimidation and destruction is what they were made for, and used for; it was those guns that enabled the disturbed individual to kill -much as the virtual killing in an online or video game, but to accept this is to move into the territory you conistently avoid precisely because you are more interested in your definition of the relationship between guns and freedom than any rival argument, which you dismiss rather than discuss.

For example, if there is consistent evidence that people who go berserk with guns are also undergoing medical treatment, then they ought not to have access to weapons; in this particular case, the mother's arsenal should have been taken away -indeed, she herself ought to have removed them from the house or from her son's grasp. We don't know enough about their relationship to comment further, but there are alternatives, in addition to which is the justification, if it exists, for a US citizen to own an assault weapon most commonly used in a theatre of war.

It is not chop sticks or spoons that make you fat, it is what you eat, how often you eat it, in what volume, and so on. I would have thought that was obvious. And you can eat Burgers, fries and chocolate with your bare hands...

[beandip]

Jeez, it's perfectly OK for Oblabla, Hitlery Clintoon and Eric Hold-up to run "assault weapons" across the border to Messico where dozens of Messicans were murdered with our taxpayer bought gunz. Oh, and actually I believe now the count is 3 US LEO's killed by Oblabla's gun running.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/12/18/cbs-news-fast-and-furious-gun-found-at-site-where-mexican-beauty-queen-killed/


Crickets...... I hear crickets...

Such hypocrites here.

See ya....wouldn't want to be ya. Remember, it's 2012 and we voted out the hate!

Bu-Bye!

[trish]

Once you can wrap your head around the simple idea that Lanza killed people and the gun was just the "tool" then you can begin to have an honest, legitimate discussion as to what the possible solution to this problem might be.
Not so hard to wrap one's head around that one. The semiautomatic was the tool. A very efficient tool. Designed explicitly for the purpose of killing people. It's a tool that should be controlled. Not everyone is allowed to drive an eighteen wheeler, and very few schools allow you to drive one through the halls. Call me daft, but probably not everyone should be allowed to buy a semiautomatic weapon, and businesses and institutions should be allowed to ban them from the their hallways. If it's not required for your profession, dangerous tools (like guns, dynamite, grenades, missiles etc.) should be regulated and strictly controlled.

[trish]

I'm quite willing to think of a firearm as a tool. It seems to me that it's the gun enthusiasts who ascribe to firearms a more a mystical, symbolic iconography. To them, guns are worshipful icons of American Freedom. The merest restriction on their use and acquisition is seen as an intolerable abrogation of freedom. But they're just tools. Nothing more. Some of them designed for shooting game. Some of them designed for target and sport shooting. Some of them designed to kill people, multiply, quickly and easily. All guns are dangerous, and should be regulated in ways commensurate with the danger they present. Semi-automatic and automatic weapons are probably the most dangerous of firearms and should be highly regulated.

I've been thinking that firing mechanisms could be designed with a built in chip. Remove the chip and the gun won't fire. If the gun is in range of a certain radio signal, the signal prevents the gun from being fired. Schools, Churches, businesses etc. could broadcast the "disarm-signal" throughout their premises. All firearms could eventually (that's a long time) be replaced with ones that have this technology.

[trish]

Currently in the U.S., guns pose no liability risks. You cannot sue a gun manufacturer for a malfunction that injured or killed someone. You cannot sue a gun manufacturer if his product was used in a murder. You cannot sue someone for selling a gun to a murderer. The cost of your health insurance doesn't reflect whether you own or your neighbor owns an assault weapon. It's about time manufacturers and enthusiast take responsibility for their product. We should hold owners responsible when their weapons (stolen, loaned or borrowed) are used to take a life (accidentally or deliberately).

[Odelay]

I'm quite willing to think of a firearm as a tool. It seems to me that it's the gun enthusiasts who ascribe to firearms a more a mystical, symbolic iconography. To them, guns are worshipful icons -

Let me stop your right there, Trish. You're not quite hitting the mark on what firearms are to them. For guys, it's an extension of their penis. For girls, it's the penis they've never had.

Beandip and other delicate flowers will probably emerge to tell us this is liberal claptrap, but this is not something liberals dreamed up, it's how they see themselves and their weapons and how they identify it in print and picture. This pic is from a gun manufacturer and spread around proudly from right wing site to right wing site...
http://cdn.ammoland.com/files/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/bushmaster-man-card-banner.jpg


Kinda reminds me how offended the tea partiers are today when you refer to them as teabaggers. Hey, liberals didn't dream up that term. They referred to themselves as teabaggers and wanted others to call them teabaggers.

[trish]

I stand, crossed-legged, and corrected at the thought of Big Govm't taking away my penis. Thanks Odelay.

[Ben]

Conservative writer David Frum...

Every Day is the Day to Talk About Gun Control:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/14/every-day-is-the-day-to-talk-about-gun-control.html

[Ben]

Michael Moore Reveals the Truth About Columbine Killings:

Michael Moore Reveals the Truth About Columbine Killings - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqylvZL845w)

[robertlouis]

And if you read down in the comments column, someone actually says that "Not to own a gun is irrational and flies in the face of history."

We truly live in wondrous times. Feckin' hell.

[Jericho]

Grow up.
You don't need it. You want it.

Does anything more need to be said?

[trish]

On the issue of liability, unlike car owner, gun owners are not required to be insured against abuses and accidents. A policy for each gun should be required by law.

[buttslinger]

Statisticians say the number of crazy murder outbursts are roughly the same now as when semi-automatic weapons were illegal, it's weird the latest batches of nutcases seem to be video game nerds, .....the new face of the NRA?

As far as society goes, each one is different.

Socially the people that are too normal to be sent to special schools or hospitals, but too odd to fit in with the crowd, their lives are social hell.

You get down to the slice of society that makes under 10 grand a year, that's where you have AIDs, crime, drug addiction, misery.

The thing about Newtown is it looks like a Hallmark card, and all the teachers and kids look like a Norman Rockwell painting. Unbelievable.

[thombergeron]

Jeez, it's perfectly OK for Oblabla, Hitlery Clintoon and Eric Hold-up to run "assault weapons" across the border to Messico where dozens of Messicans were murdered with our taxpayer bought gunz. Oh, and actually I believe now the count is 3 US LEO's killed by Oblabla's gun running.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/12/18/cbs-news-fast-and-furious-gun-found-at-site-where-mexican-beauty-queen-killed/


Crickets...... I hear crickets...

Such hypocrites here.

See ya....wouldn't want to be ya. Remember, it's 2012 and we voted out the hate!

Bu-Bye!

I don't really understand those who think it bolsters their point to speak like a nine-year-old. Calling the President "Oblabla" doesn't hurt my feelings, nor the President's. It just makes you look as though you're incapable of making a point like a grown up.

To wit, it is simply an empirical fact that having a firearm in the home triples the chances of being killed by a firearm for all occupants of the home. In other words, if you, Beandip, own a firearm, you are three times more likely to be shot to death than I am, because I no longer own a firearm.

These findings were first reported by Arthur Kellerman, currently director of the RAND Corp., in a case-controlled study in 1993. The NRA responded to Kellerman's findings by applying political pressure to have the CDC defund his research, but his results have since been replicated by numerous other investigators. You can find a recent literature review summarizing much of this research here (http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/5/6/502).

Indeed, Nancy Lanza discovered first-hand the danger of owning a firearm. Her son Adam apparently was unable to purchase a firearm on his own. Thus, if she herself had not owned firearms, her son would not have had access to the "tools" necessary to shoot her four times in the face while she slept.

[Odelay]

To wit, it is simply an empirical fact that having a firearm in the home triples the chances of being killed by a firearm for all occupants of the home.
This is just such an obvious fact that I don't know why anyone argues the point. It's akin to arguing that cigarette smoking doesn't cause lung cancer.

I know two adult men who shot and killed their brothers, by accident, and live with that every day of their lives. One of them was 12 yrs old, his brother 14, and they were hunting together. He accidentally dropped his rifle, it discharged and killed his brother. Their parents had drilled gun safety and gun responsibility to them as soon as they were out of diapers. But it didn't save the guy's brother from an accident.

When guns are involved, the best laid intentions don't mean diddily.