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Started by Funt Solo, 28 March, 2022, 05:16:33 AM

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The Mind of Wolfie Smith

it's the right to bear flintlock muskets.

The Legendary Shark


That's certainly how it started - but now the genie's well and truly out of the bottle and there's no way to put it back in and maintain protection against tyranny. It's a knotty problem with no easy solution that I can see.

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Hawkmumbler

I say we just hard reset America, call it a sunken cost experiment, and start again. Maybe hold off on giving them guns for a few millenia.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 28 September, 2022, 09:47:00 AM
there's no way to put it back in and maintain protection against tyranny.

Except, in the final irony, the only people with access to more insanely powerful weaponry than the citizens are the police and the army, meaning that all those guns are no defence at all against actual tyranny. They're only good for shooting each other. And defenceless school children, obviously.
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The Legendary Shark


Indeed. The only true protection would be to disarm everyone, police and military included. Perhaps, in a few thousand years, we'll be enlightened enough to do this. For now, though, we have to rely on the dubious benevolence of the ruling classes...

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Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 28 September, 2022, 10:32:30 AM

Indeed. The only true protection would be to disarm everyone, police and military included...


I've seen that episode of the Simpsons. It leaves the Earth vulnerable to Kang and Kodos, who conquer with a plank with a nail sticking out of it.
You may quote me on that.

Funt Solo

It's got fuck all to do with defense against tyranny. There are country's that don't allow their citizenry to be heavily armed, which don't suffer from commonplace mass shootings. And there's the USA - which does, and which does.

Tis as simple as ABC. (Although it doesn't surprise me that Shark has some sympathy for the mass shooters.)
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Dandontdare

Quote from: Funt Solo on 29 September, 2022, 03:37:25 PM
It's got fuck all to do with defense against tyranny. There are country's that don't allow their citizenry to be heavily armed, which don't suffer from commonplace mass shootings. And there's the USA - which does, and which does.

Tis as simple as ABC. (Although it doesn't surprise me that Shark has some sympathy for the mass shooters.)

But there are also countries like Canada who have similar levels of gun ownership without the same number of mass shootings (a point made in more depth in Bowling for Columbine)

The Legendary Shark


Bit harsh. My point was that the system wasn't "designed" to allow mass-shootings - that would be tinfoil hattery - but to address a realistic concern. The Founding Fathers weren't about to exchange the tyranny of kings for the tyranny of presidents and the right to bear arms was baked in as one of those checks and balances. The tragic consequences are incontrovertible but not designed to be so. Technology has outstripped the scope of the laws and fear has eclipsed their spirit.

And I have very little sympathy for any human being who deliberately harms another.
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Richard

It was never about tyranny. The right to bear arms was conceived so that pioneers could steal land from natives by force, and so that slaveholders could keep their slaves in check.

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: Richard on 29 September, 2022, 06:17:57 PM
It was never about tyranny. The right to bear arms was conceived so that pioneers could steal land from natives by force, and so that slaveholders could keep their slaves in check.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

The concept of 'right to bare arms' against an incumbent tyrant was and continues to be a hollow justification for the real reasons. It makes arms dealers a lot of money.

Funt Solo

Quote from: Dandontdare on 29 September, 2022, 04:41:30 PM
But there are also countries like Canada who have similar levels of gun ownership without the same number of mass shootings (a point made in more depth in Bowling for Columbine)

This *may* still be true (Bowling for Columbine was a while ago, and mass shooting incidents in the US are now more common and more deadly), but still doesn't do anything to solve the problem - which is that easy access to guns causes the sacrifice of many citizens, and is supported by the government (because they do nothing to stop it). This all being true in the US. (It perhaps not being true in Canada doesn't help.)

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Note to Shark - I never said that the 2nd amendment was designed to allow mass shootings. I said that the system (as it stands now) is designed to allow mass shootings. The law-makers know how to curtail mass shootings, by stopping easy access to high-powered weaponry. They don't curtail it. There is design in this. The NRA spend vast quantities of $$$ making sure that lawmakers stay off their lawn. There is design in this. Gun manufacturers do nothing to stop it, and thus continue to profit from the death of children. There is design in this.

Your usual fallback position of "yes, but governments are bad things" doesn't really do anything to help us here.
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The Legendary Shark

Quote from: Funt Solo on 29 September, 2022, 06:53:37 PM

Note to Shark - I never said that the 2nd amendment was designed to allow mass shootings. I said that the system (as it stands now) is designed to allow mass shootings. The law-makers know how to curtail mass shootings, by stopping easy access to high-powered weaponry. They don't curtail it. There is design in this. The NRA spend vast quantities of $$$ making sure that lawmakers stay off their lawn. There is design in this. Gun manufacturers do nothing to stop it, and thus continue to profit from the death of children. There is design in this.

Your usual fallback position of "yes, but governments are bad things" doesn't really do anything to help us here.


That's quite a conspiratorial view you've got going, there. Law makers, the NRA, gun manufacturers, all conspiring, maybe deliberately or maybe coincidentally, to defeat the people's representatives in their duty of care, to render the government impotent in the name of belief and profit. So I guess we're pretty much on the same page here, or at least in the same chapter.

Governments aren't bad things. They can't do anything, good or bad. They're illusory constructions wrapped in flags and paper and ink (and the same can be said of banks and corporations - all different layers in the same mirage). There are only people using the illusion for their own ends. That's the root of the problem. The illusion must therefore either be pressed into truly serving the masses or dispelled altogether and saner, more stable options found. There are deeper problems facing us; wars, shootings, assorted nightmares - these are the symptoms, not the disease. All "governments" give us are placebos - illusory solutions handed down from an illusory institution.

Of course, none of this waffle keeps powerful weapons out of the hands of lunatics. Whether they're in uniform or not.

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Funt Solo

I never said the three units were conspiring - *you* inserted that. Everything that follows, follows from your insertion.
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The Mind of Wolfie Smith

governments can't do anything, good or bad?

thank goodness. kwasi kwarteng and the evil of this week is all an illusion. i was quite worried, for a moment ...