This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Gun Control: The Big Picture
Preface: I was raised to be against guns. My parents hated guns, and believed that they only lead to crime and to accidental shootings.
Raised in a blue state, I had the stereotype that militias were made of crazies … and so the “right to bear arms” as part of a “well-regulated militia” seemed like a nutty anachronism.
And I have long been deeply influenced by leading voices for non-violence, such as Gandhi and King. So – Until recently – I was pro gun-control. As such, I understand that gun control arguments very well.
Gandhi and the Dalai Lama Were AGAINST Gun Control
I was surprised to learn that two of the best-known promoters of nonviolence in history were not opposed to guns. Indeed, Mahatma Gandhi taught that we must first be brave enough to use guns to defend ourselves, and only then can we be qualified to use non-violent methods. For example, Gandhi wrote in his book, An Autobiography (page 446):
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest … if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity.
As Gandhi wrote in Doctrine of the Sword:
I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence.
***
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 that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence.
***
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.
In Between Cowardice And Violence, Gandhi wrote:
He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully …
[When violence] is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission.
***
A man who, when faced by danger, behaves like a mouse, is rightly called a coward.
Not knowing the stuff of which nonviolence is made, many have honestly believed that running away from danger every time was a virtue compared to offering resistance, especially when it was fraught with danger to one’s life. As a teacher of nonviolence I must, so far as it is possible for me, guard against such an unmanly belief.
Self-defence … is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.
As quoted in the Seattle Times, May 15, 2001, the Dalai Lama said:
If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. Not at the head, where a fatal wound might result. But at some other body part, such as a leg.
What the Founding Fathers Said About Guns
The Second Amendment had more to do with freedom than historical militias. Here’s what the Founding Fathers actually said about arms:
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarm only those who are neither inclined, nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
– Thomas Jefferson, 1764
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.
– Thomas Jefferson
Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who didn’t.
– Ben Franklin
Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property… Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.
–Thomas Paine
A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.
– George Washington
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.
–Patrick Henry.
Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
– Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 386.
The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.
–Samuel Adams, debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87.
The right of the people to keep and bear…arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country…
–James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).
(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
–James Madison.
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government…
– Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (#28) .
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
–Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-B.
To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.
– George Mason
The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.
–Noah Webster, “An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (1787) in Pamplets on the Constitution ofthe United States (P.Ford, 1888)
[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People.
– Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
But SOMETHING Must Be Done to Stop the School Shootings!
History is interesting, but something has to change. Kids are getting murdered in their own schools.
We agree …
The Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience published a study in 2001 showing that one modern anti-depressant is associated with violent acts.
David Healy and David Menkes from Cardiff University, and Andrew Herxheimer from the UK Cochrane Centre, published a study in 2006 showing that antidepressants can cause severe violence in a small number of individuals.
Numerous other mental health experts say that anti-depressants may be a substantial factor in school shootings and other gun-related violence. And see this, this, this, this. If you have any doubt about this, please watch these videos:
Indeed, the number of school shootings, murders and murder-suicides, workplace violence, road rage, and random violence by soldiers by people taking anti-depressants is staggering.
So - whatever else we do to address school shootings - we must either stop pushing anti-depressants on kids or at least stop selling guns to people taking anti-depressants.
How Useful is a Gun Against Tyranny When the Government Has Bigger Weapons?
Of course, the usefulness of a gun as a defense against tyranny depends partly on the types of arms possessed by the government.
As George Orwell – author of 1984 – pointed out in the Tribune (October 19, 1945), the effectiveness of arms in preventing tyranny partly depends on whether the average citizen can afford the current weapon of choice possessed by the government:
The connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found generally true: that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will tend to be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and simple, the common people have a chance. Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon–so long as there is no answer to it–gives claws to the weak.The great age of democracy and of national self-determination was the age of the musket and the rifle. After the invention of the flintlock, and before the invention of the percussion cap, the musket was a fairly efficient weapon, and at the same time so simple that it could be produced almost anywhere. Its combination of qualities made possible the success of the American and French revolutions, and made a popular insurrection a more serious business than it could be in our own day. After the musket came the breech-loading rifle. This was a comparatively complex thing, but it could still be produced in scores of countries, and it was cheap, easily smuggled and economical of ammunition. Even the most backward nation could always get hold of rifles from one source or another, so that Boers, Bulgars, Abyssinians, Moroccans–even Tibetans–could put up a fight for their independence, sometimes with success. But thereafter every development in military technique has favoured the State as against the individual, and the industrialised country as against the backward one …The one thing that might reverse it is the discovery of a weapon–or, to put it more broadly, of a method of fighting–not dependent on huge concentrations of industrial plant.
If he were alive today, Orwell might say that – unless the American people create and adopt high-tech ways to defend themselves – guns will not be able to compete with drones, robots and other high-tech weapons created by the virtually unlimited American military budget.
On the other hand, as John Aziz notes:
The vast majority of America’s 285 million guns are in Republican states, which are unlikely to be disarmed easily, even with an overwhelming Federal consensus. Some might even try to secede from the Union.
In other words, gun ownership as a deterrence to a tyrannical government might work better in Red States – where a lot of people have guns – than in Blue States.
Note: I strongly believe that safety training is essential. Keep weapons away from kids, and lock up the bullets SEPARATELY so children can’t find them. It is also easy to hang weapons above arm-reach of youngsters. Please be safe.
»
- advertisements -
Front Sight will train teachers and administrators for free... http://www.frontsight.com/
I had a criminal case about a year and a half ago with a relatively younger guy (with no prior criminal record) who was suffering from depression and a severe back injury. The doctor had him on lots of meds and them put him on a new anti-depressant. Not long after, he had two beers out at dinner. He had always socially drank and the number of drinks were confirmed by the bill and other witnesses. About a half hour later, he completely lost it, got violent with his wife in the parking lot and nearly lost his life interacting with local law enforcment. I checked out the anti-depressant in PDR and it literally said that it could cause "severe violent reaction" in ten percent of the patients. Ten percent Holy cow. The doctor never mentioned a thing. I've since mentioned this to probably a dozen doctors. No one has a clue
The Heart posted yesterday a site you must see regarding killing and anti-depression drugs -----a huge long documented list of incidents
ssristories.com/index.php It looks like the covered up portion of a partial solution.
At first you guys were bashing up against my popular media-honed sensibilities as the lunatic fringe, but I think you're right.
We've got to start investigating this seriously. Regardless of how the pharmaceutical and psychiatric industry feels about it. They could not possibly be more conflicted.
We simply can't trust them, nor can we allow them to control the discussion. No different from the tobacco industry . . . . except that nobody was ever claiming that cigarettes would preserve or restore your sanity nor were doctors prescribing them.
Well, there's always a first time. I agree with this column very, very rarely.
But this is all precisely how I've been discussing Sandy Hook.
I grew up with guns, I own guns. 99.97% of all guns and gun owners do not use them improperly or for illegal purposes.
I had training as a child, 3 days worth. I trained my kids, too.
I have no problem waiting to buy a gun, I have no problem having a license to own one, I have no problem with having to buy insurance (liability) to own it.
The problem, of course, is that even when all that is done, we'll still have events like this, and the discussion will change back to gun control. Sadly, this is not a discussion of rights. It's a discussion of control.
As I told my boys, you can never be safe. So stop worrying about that. You can only lose your rights - which you need to worry about because when you lose your right to arm yourself, you will lose all your other rights.
Obtaining a license means you have the permission of the state to express the privilege of having a gun. If you lose that license, you lose that gun. It is that simple.
What do you pay for liability insurance for the privilege of having a gun?
As I stated below, there is also the issue of training. I've seen guns in the hands of people who may have the right to own them - but these people will damage something or someone eventually.
A right to own a gun doesn't confer the responsibility to manage it effectively.
I don't pay insurance - but if that's what it took, I'd pay it.
"A right to own a gun doesn't confer the responsibility to manage it effectively."
Neither does being a parent "confer the responsibility" to be a good parent. Should we license parents?
Here is the fact you must come to grips with if you want to live in a free society: There are some things that are bad (e.g., violent crimes, bad parents, etc) but there is nothing you can do to prevent them without causing more harm than good.
I know those on the left can't stand the thought of what I'm about to say, but they should try to have enough humility to admit it: Government cannot solve all of our problems.
This training should be done at school. It is a life skill.
If you believe owning a gun is a right, then only a judge should be able to take that right away.
If you understand the importance of gun rights, how is it that you "have no problem" with licensing?
Does that mean you have no problem with licensing your books too?
Well, why do we license doctors or pilots, then? I can only assume that you would have no problem with some random unlicensed guy on the street operating on your kid, or some other unlicensed guy flying the airliner on which you and your family are traveling. Do you people ever listen to yourselves?
The founders believed that individuals have rights by virtue of being human beings and that governments, which are voluntary associations of individuals, do not have the right to encroach on these rights. Among these rights is the right to bear arms, which shall not be infringed. Licensing is an infringement of that right.
Once you submit to a licensing scheme for your rights, they aren't truly rights for they can be administered or withdrawn at the will of the government.
You are failing to see the difference between bearing arms and using arms against others. You don't need a license to carry a scalpel around with you. However, once you decide to use that scalpel to cut into another human being, it is reasonable to require that you have demonstrated some basic level of proficiency.
I have a fundamental right to defend myself and, for this purpose, to bear arms. I do not have a right to shoot you with a gun because I'm angry with you. One is a fundamental right; the other is a crime.
You gun grabbers deserve to be called weak minded because you can't conceive of someone having enough self control not to use a gun in anger.
You gun grabbers also deserve to be called morally depraved for you deny the basic right of self defense to others.
I'm allowed to own a gun in the same fashion as I'm allowed to own a car - both can do severe damage in the wrong hands. Licensing and insurance help to mitigate those potentialities.
Which isn't to say that licensing will solve anything. It won't. But it's a small price to pay to continue to own guns. As it stands, we face a major battle with a strong group of insane people who want to take them away because they trust their rulers.
I do not share their views, and owning a gun is a very important right. But it's also important to know that the person owning one is at least somewhat trained to use it properly. Would you be OK with someone owning a car if they had no training whatsoever in the rules of the road? I doubt it.
The comparison you made is illegitimate because a book cannot, in my hands, cause harm if I misuse it. If the day comes when someone tells me that the ideas in those books need to be licensed, then I will fight with my guns to change that point of view, because that's what guns are for.
In the meantime, I'm more than happy to be somewhat assured that a gun owner has taken a course in using his purchase. As I said, it's not foolproof any more than a car license assures us nobody will drive drunk or run a red light. But it does help to know they were at least trained to know what they may do will cause massive damage.
How does this concept of insurance work? Do you buy insurance against going nuts and killing a bunch of people? I don't think there is a market available for that. What exactly would you buy insurance for? What are the premiums and how do you collect?
"Which isn't to say that licensing will solve anything. It won't. But it's a small price to pay to continue to own guns."
That's a strange thing to say. I guess by that logic you'd be willing to license your books too.
You don't have a right to drive a car in a public street but, according to our Constitution, you do have a right to bear arms. Accordingly, once you agree that you need to license that right, you are agreeing to the terms of the license, up to and including the rescission of it--and thus the loss of your right.
Amen
Second.
"Fast & Furious" has been conveniently swept under the rug. This is not 1973, where some courageous and fearless federal judge will push for the truth. That was in another America, corrupt yes, but not yet to it's very core like today. The assignation of the ambassador to Libya has also been covered up, information suppressed. What do you expect from a country where a lie is desired over truth? The birth certificate of the President, provided by the administration was been proven to have been a fraud by multiple independent professionals, yet there are no demands for an investigation. The American people are going to learn the lessons that all people in history have been forced to learn when they sit back and allow criminals to seize the reigns of power of their country. Expect no mercy.
Conspiring with and actively "supporting" narco-terrorism is officially sanctioned, as long as you're providing critical financial services:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz2F2JsfFyX
The right to own weapons (guns) is not so people are free to hunt. The right to own weapons is so that people have the right to defend themselves against the use of lethal force.
Guns were not invented to hunt with. Guns were invented to kill people more efficiently.
The Second Amendment specifically is about the right free people have to kill agents of a tyrannical government and said tyrannical governmenet itself.
The founding fathers were not interested in hunting. They were interested in killing other men with red coats.
The idea of killing another human being is very unpleasant to me. The idea of being a slave is even more unpleasant to me.
"The Second Amendment specifically is about the right free people have to kill agents of a tyrannical government and said tyrannical governmenet itself."
Well, Mr. Tough Guy, go ahead and take your gun and kill an agent of our tyrannical (and I agree that it's tyrannical) government. See how that works out for you...
Not before it is time. When the time has come, it won't be a mystery, it will be very apparent.
BTW, vooter, you're a fuckin' douche.
I wish I could have given you 10 up votes on that last sentence. well done!
If easy access to guns is the problem, wouldn't gun shows be some of the most dangerous places on earth?
The combination of our sociopathic society and guns is lethal. Get used to it.
The crux is the fact that so many americans NEED to own guns. That is the sickness.
Either those americans are fearful (of boogie men), paranoid, bullies, or hunters. In all of these cases, these types of people are not well adjusted, empathetic or gentle.
It is WHAT america is. Since the beginning of this country americans have always hated the "other", be they native americans, immigrants, blacks etc etc. now it is muslims.
WHEN have americans ever been peace loving people? NEVER.
What country would you compare to? Humans are still animals and are still conditioned to "flight or fight" No pharma or law can regulate the human response. You act as though there is some fantasy island nation out there in which murder or injustice has ever taken place.
When you have been subject to a home invasion and had your wife raped at gun point and your children terrorized you might not be so prejudiced against any person american or otherwise being fearful of boogie men. Just feel lucky you haven't endured any violence in your life and move on and hope it's always the case.
freedom is never free
I am all for gun crontrol as long as the government leads by example and disarms FIRST and completely, including their deadly torture mechanisms, TASERS.
Until then it is simply splitting hairs. I agree with the belief that when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. Guns were banned wiithin the walls of the school ... and yet a lone gunman (as the story is told) brought guns into the school and shot kids.
... and honestly, given how the mainstream propagandist media renditions of prior acts of violence have fallen apart (JFK, Oklahoma City, the Sikh temple, the movie theater killings, the underwear bomber, etc all of whom had help or "handlers"), I expect the lone gunman conspiracy theory in Connecticut to eventually fall apart as well.
I'm sure your "handler" theory has many adherents, but wouldn't the 'lone gunman conspiracy theory' be your theory and not the one that's going to "fall apart"?
Borrowed from Wiki:
In no particular order, early American settlers viewed the right to arms and/or the right to bear arms and/or state militias as important for one or more of these purposes:
#1 on that list is there for a reason, sadly those reasons being more than obvious today.
If Manchin is serious about guns......is he making sure operation Fast and Furious gets investigated and the perps pay, or is it only private citizens he is looking at. Far more Mexicans were killed with the guns we ran there than this massacre.
GW,
Please don't use the Orwellian newspeak term "Gun Control" to refer to restriction on ownership of guns. Let's call a spade a spade. You cite Orwell so I'm going to assume you understand something of his position on newspeak.
Instead, force those who want to take away our rights to refer to their position for what it truly is: "victim disarmament" or "citizen disarmament" or "anti gun rights." The phrase "gun control" sounds like a good thing--and indeed it is! It is important to hold the gun steady and firmly and have smooth trigger pull.
Thanks,
Crusty
"It is important to hold the gun steady and firmly and have smooth trigger pull."
Don't forget to use a good eye and aim with the frontsight; http://www.frontsight.com/
Why do you think George Orwell made such a big deal about Newspeak? Why do you think he provided an appendix to 1984 (it's been awhile, but that's what I recall) helping us identify newspeak terms? ("Gun control" fits this definition like a glove.)
Here is why: When you find yourself choosing between the path to totalitarianism or the path to freedom, once you use the term "gun control," and if you have enough awareness about you to look around, you'll find that you've alread gone quite a way down the path to totalitarianism.
Words matter. Listen to Orwell's warning.
Two other phrases to lose: "assault weapon" and "gun show loophole".
I don't like to be soft on guns or cold hearted about the death of 20 children, but I don't think it's at the top of our list of problems.
Banksters and (other) gangsters are running our country.
Too bad the media can't get lit up over that.
We're all getting lit up here in Washington State. Maybe that'll bring the violence down.
The corporate media that sets the terms of "public debate" is fucked. Even the liberal blogosphere is challenging this simple-minded "control bullets" bullshit.
Guys like Senator Manchin seem to think the 2nd amendment is only to insure we can hunt or something. 2nd amendment had nothing to do with hunting. It'll be interesting to see if nothing moves on gun control after this one, if there is yet another even worse 'random' occurrence somewhere.
I smell arat somewhere in all of this. What ever came of the second shooter and suspicious van from the 911 recording?
I think they have an atrocity a month planned. They tipped their hand in the media saying "nothing was done after Auorora and now it has to be done!"
It was on another web site. It was Piers Morgan of CNN - a Brit involved in the phone hacking in the UK.
They were shocked nothing was done after Aurora. Communist China is demanding Americans be disarmed too. Why? This has all been planned.
Diane Feinstein made some comment today or yesterday to the effect that they had legislation crafted a year ago, and waiting for something like this...
I'm not sure what happened, nor the mental state of Adam Lanza, nor the types of meds he was taking, nor if the batch of meds was contaminated; I think Adam would have preferred to be a normal human being but due to some genetic or embryonic malfunction, that was not to be. I am deeply saddened by this tragic event.
For self-defense, you may want to consider this device [see link below]; you must know its limitations, practice with it and rehearse different scenarios and how to react to them until this is second nature. You must know your options and you must think before you act - this is essential if you are to survive and defeat your attacker - this preparation cannot be stressed enough.
I carry this weapon with me whenever I leave the house concealed in either an "inside the waistband holster" or a shoulder holster.
http://www.piexon.com/
Once again, you have to know when to attack and when to wait for an opportunity to attack. Simply charging an assailant can get you killed no matter what type of weapon you are carrying. To have even a chance of success you need to be trained, you need to practice and you need to rehearse. Let's face it, having a command of this information is much more potent than dialing 911, if even you have a chance to dial 911...
Where the fuck are you people living that you're under this constant threat of attack?! LOL...
Chicago, Detroit, Compton, Bronx, Southern border towns along Texas like El Paso etc...
LOL...*I* live in the Bronx...nobody carries guns...we're doing just fine, thanks....
Oh the Bronx idiot who was posting here the other day.
The Bronx = 1221 crimes per square mile per year. I posted the link last time. I cannot be bothered to look it up. Lovely place inhabited by lovely people.
apparently NY is NOT like deep red neck USA, in terms of gun ownership.
Different people, different perception of risk, different risk tolerance, different preferences wrt defense strategies.
Different strokes. It looks like it's their fucking kids we need to worry about when it comes to mass killings. And our own, too.
Glad to know that.