We Can Work It Out - Politics & Philosophy | Page 93 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

50yearslate said 

HOLEY NO PLEASE DON’T LEAVE  your posts here are so eloquent and meaningful and amazing please don’t leave we need you here or at very least I want you here

Ok ok I’ll lurk, just for you.

Might even post once a month 

Moved this post from this discussion in another thread (starting here and continuing on the next page) because I got terribly philosophical (this tends to happen when I’m PWT) and so I felt it should be here.

@50yearslate said

That’s a want, not a need

Did I not just say you need them in my next sentence? Yes, I did.

This is what police are for. And even if you do need to protect something, why does one person need multiple handguns? I’m afraid I don’t understand.

Police aren’t totally ubiquitous and can’t always get there in time, especially in remote rural areas. Usually, unless it’s an urban situation where the police are already present, the police show up half an hour after everything’s gone down to investigate what happened. Plus, the idea of having to rely entirely on governmental force to keep oneself and one’s family and property safe is rather alarming. What happens if the police force becomes corrupted (which is a significant problem in many areas)? Even if your local police force is perfectly on the level and full of good people (which most are), you’d still be at the mercy of the state to safeguard your personal safety and property.

In re: question 2, different guns serve different purposes. Hypothetically, I suppose one might need one type of smaller handgun for one situation, such as convenient concealed carry, and another type of handgun for other situations (longer barrel=more accuracy).You might also need (not want ) multiple guns to keep in multiple places, so that, in an emergency, you can get to it before it’s too late.

Also, what if you buy one gun but it doesn’t serve your purpose, so you have to get another one that actually works for you? There might be a loophole in the law for exchange, I don’t know.

In general, though, I just feel like it’s an unnecessary restriction on people’s ability to purchase firearms that seems like a power grab more than anything and could possibly be a step toward greater restrictions. I know the slipperly sloperly fallercy is an oft-ridiculed talking point of the right, but in regard to gun control, it’s not entirely without precedent.

Also, I’m listening to The Man Who Sold the World and ‘Running Gun Blues’ just came on, which is more about shell-shock than gun control, but it’s still funny.

Not necessarily. The law could make it significantly more difficult for unlicensed people to access firearms, which could decrease the number of gun-related accidents or shootings.

Perhaps, but a) it’s still an infringement on the natural rights of those people — and yes, I know, we have to infringe on the rights of those who would infringe on the rights of others to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which brings me to b) it mostly makes it significantly more difficult for law-abiding citizens to access firearms, and because law-abiding citizens are not crazy and hell-bent on causing chaos, they are likely to be more deterred by such restrictions than someone who is crazy and hell-bent on causing chaos, who will probably find a way to access firearms.

Greater gun control doesn’t necessarily mean lower levels of gun crime. On the contrary, there are far more shootings in urban areas with tight gun control such as Chicago and New York than in gun-laden areas like Texas. The reasons are many and complex, but I’m sure it has a lot to do with those cities’ underlying crime and poverty problems, and perhaps one could argue that the tight gun control actually aggravates the problem by making it harder for law-abiding citizens to acquire firearms, which means only the criminals end up with guns.

As for it not being the government’s place, I disagree. I think it is the government’s job to place restrictions on things in order to keep the country safe.

And this is where I can never agree. At its most essential level, the government’s job is to safeguard the natural rights of its citizenry, and place restrictions on anything and anyone who might infringe on those rights. (This includes maintaining law and order, of course, because criminals are criminal precisely because they infringe on the rights of others.) Beyond that, adult citizens of a country are free to exercise their rights at their own discretion. The key here is that with power and liberty comes responsibility, and it is up to you, the individual citizen, to be responsible, and the government should encourage that by providing information (e.g. nutrition labels, smoking warnings, etc.) and encouraging education.

Now, I’ll certainly concede that our government performs a few other functions, such as maintaining parks and roads and other public facilities, and maintaining a social safety net (I’m not an extreme libertarian, I’ll concede that the social safety net certainly does provide invaluable services, although there are many aspects about it which I think could stand reform and I prefer it to be more at a local level than federal, generally speaking, but that’s another topic).

But, essentially, it is not the government’s job to take care of you. That is your job as a responsible, fully capable adult citizen (not you personally, Fiddy, not yet anyway ). This is exactly the same argument I’d use to defend the legalization of various drugs and such controlled substances, such as marijuana and nicotine and alcohol. There are certainly some restrictions that can and arguably should be placed on various things for the good of society, but we must always be alert that the good of the many should not involve the sacrifice the rights of the individual — the smallest minority of all.

That said, it’s ridiculous that Kinder Eggs are banned in the US yet guns are (for the most part) totally legal…  

I’m not entirely sure about all the details of that or how analogous the two example are, but it’s safe to say you can usually get us libertarian or classical liberal types to agree that less regulation is probably not a bad thing in general.

@lovelyritametermaid said

Starr Shine? said

Honestly if we are talking about sport and protection. Getting a gun should be a hard as getting a car. We force all car owners to learn driving safety yet we don’t do the same for guns which are just as deadly.

Agreed. I do believe that citizens have a right to carry a gun for self-defense (as much as they have the right to drive), though the means by which they go about getting one and learning how to use one should be regulated so as to help further prevent unnecessary gun violence. There should be a minimum age requirement  (which will actually be somewhat helpful, unlike the bloody nicotine minimum age…stupid government regulating when I can start buying Juul pods…..) to prevent teens from using guns irresponsibly, as well as background checks (a touchy subject because people want privacy and blah blah blah other bullshit even though they already surrender all their data over to corporations and the government when they use Google, Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, etc…), and substantial training/safety instruction (much like Drivers Ed but, y’know, for little handguns that can kill someone in seconds…..which a car can also do but you get my point). A person’s permit to carry a gun should also be able to be revoked due to “bad behavior” (also similar to driving, as you can get your license revoked due to “bad behavior”)   

This is an interesting point and a valid one. I certainly agree that people should be better educated and trained in regards to the proper care, handling, and usage of guns — this fits in with what I was saying above about great responsibility and whatnot. The better people are trained to handle guns, the more respect they’ll have for guns as dangerous weapons, and the more likely they’ll be to handle them with discretion and respect — in other words, safely. I myself intend to take a concealed carry course soon, which of course teaches you all the things you need to know about safely not shooting yourself or anyone/anything else in the foot or anywhere else before you can apply for a concealed carry permit, because I think it’s important knowledge to have. (I also really want to shoot the little shooty balls at the little printed circle thingy or whatever, because I think that sounds like it would be fun [with ear protection of course, not much fun if you’re going deaf], but that’s another story. )

HOWEVER — I’m rather wary of this being a strictly regulated thing on the federal level. I feel like that’s just too close to infringing on the Second Amendment, especially the permit-revoking bit. The reason I’m wary is because, you have to understand, the purpose of the Second Amendment doesn’t just concern self-defense — it’s also intended as a balance against a potentially tyrannical government. If the government can in any way disarm its law-abiding citizenry, they have the upper hand. I’m not saying we should just leave things as they are and hope people will learn of their own accord, but I think that there might be a better way to encourage desirable responsible behaviors than just making something mandatory. What that solution might be, I don’t know and I’m way too PWT to think of anything really constructive or specific right now, but I’m sure at the very least a good ad campaign couldn’t hurt. I’m visualizing the “LOCK UP YOUR GUNS” billboards already.

ALSO — signing up for Google, Facebook/Instagram, and TikTok is technically voluntary, so you can stay away from those tech platforms and retain some modicum of privacy; using Google or Facebook isn’t a right*, whereas you have a natural right to own a firearm, and theoretically you should be able to exercise that right without infringing on your other natural right to privacy.

Holy s**t, I should be a lawyer or politician. It’s half past midnight, I’m going to bed.

Edit: This whole discussion makes my guitar in my avatar look an awful lot like some kind of weapon it’s not a gun, or that kind of axe, I swear

*Although it could be argued that, since so much of public discourse is conducted on platforms like Twitter, these platforms are the public square of the 21st century and therefore everyone should have a right to access them or it’s an infringement on their First Amendment rights to free speech, but that’s a WHOLE other argument which goes into private company rights, tech censorship, publisher vs. platform debate, monopolies, and a whole fuckton of other s**t.

50yearslate said
Wow, that is very long. A lot of interesting points made but I’m running late so I will return later with a longer post.  

I know, I kinda went overboard. It took me like an hour and a half to write, all in all.

QuarryMan said

Still, I don’t think guns should have zero regulation, in the same way I don’t think legalised drugs should have zero regulation. In my opinion, one of the best things about legalising drugs is that it gets them out of the black market and into legitimate production and distribution where it can therefore be ensured that they are safe to use, and that the people buying them aren’t about to OD or something. Similar logic should apply to guns, IMO.   

Exactly. I’m not saying guns should have zero regulation, either, and they don’t — for instance, assault rifles are outright banned for civilian use. I’ve simply been arguing that the laws passed in Virginia weren’t the right regulations, were too overbearing, and the protests were at least somewhat justified. (And also everything else I’ve been arguing about because I love to argue. )

Harking back to an old conversation between many of us, Wigwam was saying how only 97% of the scientific community agrees about climate change and that it’s man made.

Well, I (my dad actually) just came across proof that they’re wrong – researchers have tried to replicate the results of those reports, and they couldn’t. Read this article in whole to actually get the details I’m leaving out:

https://qz.com/1069298/the-3-o…..ll-flawed/