Public Safety: Guns and Driverless Cars

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by malvachat

Most people(well in my circle) in Britain find it so hard to understand this gun thing.
It just doesn't compute at all.
I respect people points of view on most things but this is one subject I can't.
Being allowed to possess guns yes.WITH PROPER CHECKS
But Military assault weapons.
Come on that's just stupid.

Many gun-owning Americans support this point of view. Incidentally, so does federal law. An assault rifle (this term has a precise definition in law) is not available to the average American since it qualifies as a machine gun, and machine guns have been heavily restricted for three decades. The term you used—assault weapon—is harder to pin down in legal terms. It is essentially any semi-automatic rifle with certain cosmetic features which make it no deadlier than a simple hunting rifle. There are military assault rifles but, respectfully malva, a 'military assault weapon' is not a thing.

I agree that proper checks are necessary. We may disagree what a proper check is, and as we've recently learned, even proper checks fail to catch everybody. Sadly, the Texas shooter this week had passed a background check despite his disqualifying history of violent crime. And the Las Vegas shooter passed every background check as well because he had no criminal past to speak of. After a month we still don't know his motive. Perhaps a psychological evaluation would have somehow indicated his intentions, but to me, requiring a psych-eval for gun buyers with no marks against them would be improper. For the government to limit a basic human right requires a damn good reason, and the remote possibility that any one gun might be used to commit a crime isn't a good enough reason, given the vast majority of guns are never aimed at people (that's rule #1 of gun safety, after all).

By the way, I'm not proud of what I said to albed, but I'm glad you got a kick out of it.

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by Mazer

Many gun-owning Americans support this point of view. Incidentally, so does federal law. An assault rifle (this term has a precise definition in law) is not available to the average American since it qualifies as a machine gun, and machine guns have been heavily restricted for three decades. The term you used—assault weapon—is harder to pin down in legal terms. It is essentially any semi-automatic rifle with certain cosmetic features which make it no deadlier than a simple hunting rifle. There are military assault rifles but, respectfully malva, a 'military assault weapon' is not a thing.

I agree that proper checks are necessary. We may disagree what a proper check is, and as we've recently learned, even proper checks fail to catch everybody. Sadly, the Texas shooter this week had passed a background check despite his disqualifying history of violent crime. And the Las Vegas shooter passed every background check as well because he had no criminal past to speak of. After a month we still don't know his motive. Perhaps a psychological evaluation would have somehow indicated his intentions, but to me, requiring a psych-eval for gun buyers with no marks against them would be improper. For the government to limit a basic human right requires a damn good reason, and the remote possibility that any one gun might be used to commit a crime isn't a good enough reason, given the vast majority of guns are never aimed at people (that's rule #1 of gun safety, after all).

By the way, I'm not proud of what I said to albed, but I'm glad you got a kick out of it.

Quite right name calling is not something to be proud of.
As to this gun thing.
Of course I don't know the details of what guns are what.
I have used a shotgun years ago.
Also I used a firing range in the USA many years ago for the experience.
I can't say I liked it really.
I know it's in the DNA of many,Americans this love of guns.
It's just not something I can get my head around.
Surly something needs to be done not just repeating the same old arguments over and over again.
As to owning a gun being a "basic human right"
I find that hard to understand that sort of thinking
Britain's police on the whole are still unarmed.
Despite all the troubles in the world most police want to keep it that way.
We do have armed response units which may need expanding in the present climate but I'm not really in favour of more guns on the street.
There is gun crime in Britain but not enough to justify arming all of our police.
It's a debate that we in Britain maybe shouldn't get involved in concerning American.
A country that has so many great things going for it's way of life.
Lets it's self down with this issue I feel.
But we have a phrase here in Britain.
"Non players stay off the green"

[Mazer]

It's a cultural thing, I guess. As hard as it is for you to get American gun culture, I find I cannot in the slightest wrap my head around this: YouTube: 11 British police officers versus 1 guy with a knife. I get that putting a gun in a cop's hand is the equivalent of putting the power over life itself in his hand and the British people don't want that, but give the cops something. I mean, a guard dog's bark is only as assertive as the bite it threatens, and no matter how short a leash you might put on your dog, you'd never pull his teeth.

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by Mazer

It's a cultural thing, I guess. As hard as it is for you to get American gun culture, I find I cannot in the slightest wrap my head around this: YouTube: 11 British police officers versus 1 guy with a knife. I get that putting a gun in a cop's hand is the equivalent of putting the power over life itself in his hand and the British people don't want that, but give the cops something. I mean, a guard dog's bark is only as assertive as the bite it threatens, and no matter how short a leash you might put on your dog, you'd never pull his teeth.

The guy with the knife will eventually get tired and and be disarmed.Yes it's comical that 11 police are there but what has that to do with guns?Are you saying he should be shot?The guy is obviously a nut job.Does that been we have to execute him?
Because of all the guns in America and the "Gun Culture"your police have to be armed.I don't at this moment feel our police either need to be or want to be.As to the average guy in the street being armed absolutely not.
There are so many aspects of American culture I do so admire. But this ownership of guns with it's so obvious (IMHO)flaws is not one of them.

[Bright Eyes]

For my part, I don't own a gun and never have. What's more, for most of my life I held to the idea that guns were bad. That is what I was taught in school, on TV, in the media, in discussions, everywhere. We don't need guns because people will just use them to kill others, and besides, we have the police to save our bacon when we need them.

What changed my mind was the understanding that people who don't have guns can still die from them. And they do. This is because only the law-abiding obey gun-control laws; criminals still have them and use them. The only difference is that the victim can't shoot back. This makes the criminals very happy.

Ever since I started learning from alt news outlets, instead of relying on the main stream media, I have heard of many cases where law-abiding people who had self-protection were able to shoot back at a criminal, and stopped the criminal from continuing to do harm. This meant something to me.

The Main Stream Media almost never report on such events. The media has for years painted gun-owners as rednecks who are reckless with guns and that the high American gun death rate is due to them. This is not born out by the actual statistics. American law-abiding gun owners are, over all, a fairly peaceable bunch. Millions upon millions of people own guns and never do gun violence to anyone their entire lives. Most violent gun crime in America is gang related, often over drug deals or gang turf. And this is not in locations where Constitutional gun carry exists; it's mostly in Gun Control areas like Chicago, LA, Philadelphia, Detroit, where legal gun ownership is nearly impossible. So the gangsters have guns illegally. They don't care about the law, and law enforcement can't stop them having guns, so disarming the law-abiding doesn't achieve a whole lot, except make honest people more vulnerable and please those who have been conned on this subject.

People do point at the massacres that have taken place as an argument against guns, but the reverse is true. The people who were shot at were already disarmed. If any of them had the means to shoot back the situations may have turned out less destructively to human life. This, in fact, has happened a number of times when potential massacres have been less or nipped in the bud because someone was able to shoot the person starting the attack. The MSM tend not to report such things, so people are unaware of them. It is no coincidence that most of these massacres have taken place in gun-control areas, where people are unlikely to have the means to fight back.

Then there is the matter of the US Constitution, which recognizes people's natural right to own guns with a view to self-protection and even overthrowing a tyrannical government that can't be removed by legal means and is oppressing the people. The founding fathers were savvy enough to know that governments invariably attract corrupt people because it offers them power and the means to make a lot of money. So they wrote that the Second Amendment, which protects the First Amendment, ie, the human right to freedom of speech, which includes the freedom to speak against the government. The Constitution requires government to protect people's right to free speech and to bear arms, not erode them. Proto-tyrannical governments love to take away people's guns; this has happened in so many countries over the years, before they felt free to become tyrannical; the people, having been disarmed 'for the good of the people', had no means to fight back. So all of this seem like reasonable arguments to me for the owning of firearms.

I am conscious that I have probably alienated nearly everyone who still visits this forum, and I'm sorry for that to happen. But for me, in all good conscience, I do believe that the means to protect your life is a basic human right that no government has the prerogative to take away or infringe. The US government, at least, is supposed to be the servant of the sovereign people, not their master. The degree of departure from that foundational principle shows how far down the slippery slope America has gone, and in many other countries the people aren't sovereign at all, but subjects of either a monarch or the state. People are not encouraged to consider that reality, being intentionally distracted with other things.

The implied social contract that the police will save our chestnuts out of the fire is a myth; police almost never can arrive in time to save us; they usually can only arrive, at best, a few minutes later, and most attacks on people are over by then.

Over the recent years, since 9/11 in fact, I have come to realize how conditioned my thinking had become by my social environment. During this time I have been working at studying alternative views that the MSM don't acknowledge, or deride as nutter opinions. I have found many things out that have been liberating to me, but I know has put me outside what most people will accept. People generally don't like to have their world view disturbed. Most people don't want to be cast out by their friends, so they conform and fit in. That's their choice, but I prefer to value truth in all subjects, not just about self-defense.

So sorry guys; I'm in a very different camp to the one I was in at the beginning of Napsterites, all those years ago.

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by malvachat

The guy with the knife will eventually get tired and and be disarmed.Yes it's comical that 11 police are there but what has that to do with guns?Are you saying he should be shot?The guy is obviously a nut job.Does that been we have to execute him?
Because of all the guns in America and the "Gun Culture"your police have to be armed.I don't at this moment feel our police either need to be or want to be.As to the average guy in the street being armed absolutely not.
There are so many aspects of American culture I do so admire. But this ownership of guns with it's so obvious (IMHO)flaws is not one of them.

Presented without comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0xTcF2kUhw

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by Mazer

Presented without comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0xTcF2kUhw

Giving members of the public the power to enforce the law can't be right.In this case the guy was ex military so would have an element of self control.Average guy on the street wouldn't.Some might argue kill the guy anyway and rid the world of another scum bag.I just happen to believe in the rule of law and trained people in charge of fire arms.

[albed]

I theorized many years ago that thousands of years of human slavery had selected for large numbers of submissive, weak-minded humans like Malvachat who can't imagine everyone having equal rights. I've seen it confirmed enough that I ought to write a dissertation.

[albed]

Jeeze! I thought others would help malva become less stupid by pointing it out to him.

Originally Posted by malvachat

the guy was ex military so would have an element of self control.

The Texas church shooter who killed 26 recently was ex military.

The men who chased him down and shot him weren't.

Originally Posted by malvachat

Giving members of the public the power to enforce the law can't be right.

I guess you all like him the way he is.