Gun Rights Upheld in the US

[Strong Eagle]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5857534.html

Personally, this was the correct decision for many reasons.

a) All other rights of liberty and property ownership are dependent upon self defense. Without the right to defend, all other rights are meaningless because they can be taken away.

b) In the larger sense, an armed population keeps the government in check.

c) We finally know that 'people' in the second amendment means exactly the same thing as 'people' in all the other amendments.

Cheers.

[Strong Eagle]

And if I may add, this is a fundamental truth.

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.

If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.

[Bafana]

I believe the correct decision was made.

Its a pity that a lot of other countries don't follow the USA's example.

[local lad]

I do not wish to see the right to upheld guns' ownership in Spore. Such reports remind me the images of kids killed in Columbine and VT incident. Generally, I have no qualms with such but its the human factor that worries me. There is no mechanism out there to measure the tendency to protect or to kill. There is so much we understand human mind and what they think but it would be too late when unnecessary yet adverse actions are carried out before we understand the psychology of humans.

[ProvenPracticalFlexible]

It is interesting that to many Americans the constitution seems to be like a religion. It seems to be something untouchable, holy and worth to worship. (Don't mean anyone here, referring to the comments about the article) In the end it is just a man written contract. Anyway Americans of course have the right to decide based on their values, and respect the constitution as one of the core values for the country.

But it is a sad World we are living in when in a developed wealthy countries like US, one cannot trust the government without having guns at home. The army the government commands is made out of Americans, would they follow blindly and shoot other Americans if things got out of hand? Crime situation must also be really bad if an average citizen really needs a gun for self protection. You would expect a decent government to do something about that, not just saying that well you can have gun and protect yourself.

“The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender”

[Turtle]

Could the same logic apply on a larger scale, how can a small country defend itself against a larger country if they don’t have same size army or same weapons? Should every country get their nuclear weapons, so they couldn’t be forced to do anything and they could defend their sovereignty?

Well that's why nuclear weapons are a big deal, because that's exactly what they do. That's probably why the Cold War didn't become a real war. That's why Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs are a huge deal - not because we think they're suddenly going to launch them at us, but because once they have them, we basically can't depend on a military solution. i.e. they do what they want. If Iran suddenly becomes an Al Qaida hotbed and has nukes, what can we do about it? Certainly no one can invade and force a regime change. It's the game of Mutually Assured Destruction - the end result is always the protagonist has to back down, because pressing the button will result in your destruction as well. Nobody, not least a big, powerful, technologically advanced country, likes to back down to a smaller and supposedly weaker one.

[taxico]

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone.

that mirrors my friend's thoughts when i first stepped into arizona and he had his gun plain as day on a puhrty holster.

by the time my trip was over, he'd brought me through an NRA course and some months down the road i headed over to CT and got a permit.

pity about the (old) NY gun laws but i still have a glock locked in my apartment safe there...

i'm glad the ruling went the way it did. going to the shooting range is a good way to de-stress! does that help? : )

[banana]

Do we really need more ways to kill ourselves? Just like how every jackass on the road is everyone else but ourselves, everyone thinks that THEY are the ones that need protecting. Guns do not equalise anything. They just change the dynamics of any confrontation and speed up its resolution. Who's to say the octogenarian is not going to go postal and turn vigilante on ethnic kids he thinks are gang bangers?

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society.

Actually that sounds like democracy to me.

[sundaymorningstaple]

The army the government commands is made out of Americans, would they follow blindly and shoot other Americans if things got out of hand? Crime situation must also be really bad if an average citizen really needs a gun for self protection.

I have to assume two things here. One, you aren't an American and two, if you are an American, you are not old enough to remember Kent State.

What is an Average citizen? Me living in my hometown farming community of 10K people or those 10's of millions who live in and around inner city gettos? Guess "average" would have to be relative wouldn't it.

Me? I'm a Yankee Farmer. I'm with SE on this one but I think all here already know that. You can have my guns when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.......

[Plavt]

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.

However, carrying a gun will not guarantee your safety or ensure you will be left alone. You could be shot in the back or a group of people could jump on you, disarm you and shoot you with your own gun!

[Strong Eagle]

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.

However, carrying a gun will not guarantee your safety or ensure you will be left alone. You could be shot in the back or a group of people could jump on you, disarm you and shoot you with your own gun!

This makes no sense. My chances with a gun are much better than without, and having had a very nasty experience, I can tell you that if I had not had a gun on my person, two very large apes in a pickup truck would have whupped the $hit out of me. It was amazing how quickly they made a U-turn back to their truck and drove off as I began to pull my hand from my jacket pocket with a revolver in it.

What the media rarely publishes is the number of crimes prevented by guns. It far exceeds any cases such as you note. It is a fact that crime has dropped in every state where concealed carry has been enacted. It is a fact that concealed carry permit holders have an almost zero weapons related crime rate (don't forget that most states won't let you carry a gun if you don't pay child support - a crime).

Sorry, Plavt, I have yet to hear one gun control advocate explain how taking guns from law abiding citizens makes the world a safer place. When you figure out how to get the guns out of the hands of the criminal element, then come back and talk to me.

[Strong Eagle]

Do we really need more ways to kill ourselves? Just like how every jackass on the road is everyone else but ourselves, everyone thinks that THEY are the ones that need protecting. Guns do not equalise anything. They just change the dynamics of any confrontation and speed up its resolution. Who's to say the octogenarian is not going to go postal and turn vigilante on ethnic kids he thinks are gang bangers?

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society.

Actually that sounds like democracy to me.

No, that would be anarchy and/or dictatorship. Majority rule does not alone make a democracy, for the majority will always take advantage of the minority. What is required are unassailable minority rights that cannot be abridged. Then you can have democracy. This is why the constitution is so revered by Americans and many others.

PS: Guns equalize a LOT! You have obviously never been in a situation where you were outnumbered and about to be beaten. You'd be seriously wishing for a gun to 'equalize' things.

[ProvenPracticalFlexible]

I have to assume two things here. One, you aren't an American and two, if you are an American, you are not old enough to remember Kent State.

What is an Average citizen? Me living in my hometown farming community of 10K people or those 10's of millions who live in and around inner city gettos? Guess "average" would have to be relative wouldn't it.

No, I’m not American, and too young to remember Kent State incident. Just read about it and wondering what if the students had been carrying guns? It would have given even better reason for the trigger-happy national guardsmen to shoot more of them.

What is an average American, excellent question? There’s that book I’ve seen at airport bookstore called Average American, I guess I should read it to find out. Or take a quiz on http://www.blogthings.com/howaverageamericanareyouquiz/ to find out.

But ok, I think we both know it’s an expression, and there is no one type of American. Maybe I should have written do most Americans need guns to protect themselves, and I would hope not. In the farm do you need guns, maybe and guns also has more use as you can hunt with them. In a city do you need a gun, I would hope not.

I’m not against guns as such and as I have said earlier I own guns myself. I use them for hunting. If my home country government tried to take away my guns; which I only use once a year, of course I wouldn’t hand them over. But I don’t feel the need to carry a gun for self protection while I’m in developed countries. Maybe I have had false feeling of security while I’ve been visiting US. I even let my wife travel there alone without a gun.

I just have an impression, that for some people carrying a gun is almost like religion. To justify this religion the good old NRA helps to create good arguments how guns make your life safer and better. But as said it’s up to Americans to decide on their guns and keep them at home and in car if they think that kind of protection is needed. It is just interesting how the right to carry a gun is such a fundamental value to many people. Cultural differences again I guess.

[Strong Eagle]

I just have an impression, that for some people carrying a gun is almost like religion. To justify this religion the good old NRA helps to create good arguments how guns make your life safer and better. But as said it’s up to Americans to decide on their guns and keep them at home and in car if they think that kind of protection is needed. It is just interesting how the right to carry a gun is such a fundamental value to many people. Cultural differences again I guess.

Gun ownership is a religion because the right of self defense is the most fundamental right of all. Without that, all other rights become meaningless. The police cannot protect you; in fact the Supreme Court has ruled that the police have no requirement to protect you.

Guns do make your life safer. You just haven't been exposed to the differences between Singapore and other cities. In Singapore, I see six male youths standing around a lamp pole at 2 in the morning, I don't worry. I see six guys hanging around at 2 in the morning in Houston, I cross the street to avoid them. I've seen the East Texas and Louisiana rednecks, drunk, and just itching for a fight (see earlier post about the pickup truck). I've seen the carpenter working on my house robbed at gunpoint as he pulled up to my house (and no I did not live in a slum, they saw his tool chest and decided to take it)... one learns to see if one is being followed before pulling into a driveway at home... it is a common crime. It's ALL too common... enough such that you becoming a victim of crime is rather large.

I am a peace loving man. I don't want to fight. And a gun seriously improves my chances of not having to fight, and if I do have to fight, seriously improves my chances of winning.

[banana]

Do we really need more ways to kill ourselves? Just like how every jackass on the road is everyone else but ourselves, everyone thinks that THEY are the ones that need protecting. Guns do not equalise anything. They just change the dynamics of any confrontation and speed up its resolution. Who's to say the octogenarian is not going to go postal and turn vigilante on ethnic kids he thinks are gang bangers?

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society.

Actually that sounds like democracy to me.

No, that would be anarchy and/or dictatorship. Majority rule does not alone make a democracy, for the majority will always take advantage of the minority. What is required are unassailable minority rights that cannot be abridged. Then you can have democracy. This is why the constitution is so revered by Americans and many others.

PS: Guns equalize a LOT! You have obviously never been in a situation where you were outnumbered and about to be beaten. You'd be seriously wishing for a gun to 'equalize' things.

How does having firearms change that? You still end up with the group of people with the most guns having the loudest voice. Then with 'gun control' laws set up, you basically have the rich, the connected and the government dominating over everyone else. That's not any more democratic is it? Who is going to protect the rights of the poor, alternative thinker who cannot or choose not to purchase handguns?

Yes, I have been in situations where I was outnumbered and about to be beaten. A few years ago in Australia, I had gone to a pool hall to confront my chef who falsified a cheque. As it turns out, this particular pool hall was the hang out of all his delinquent friends. They were mostly Greek thugs while, as you might've realised, I'm an Asian that's not built like a brick house. Yes, I did wish I had a weapon of some sort to pound their cowardly bums into the ground.

What I did was to grab a pool cue to keep them at bay and ran for my car, notified the police of the fraud and strangely enough, that guy was dumb enough to try and cash it anyway.

If I had a gun, it probably would've turned out far worse. They might have had guns too and that would have been a disaster.