The gun law in the US.: Philosophy Forums

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The gun law in the US.
Will it ever change?

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The gun law in the US.

coriolis
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Posted 06/29/09 - 02:23 AM:	#21
Willowz wrote: Criminals want to kill criminals most of the time. Excellent Point. The gangs, drug dealers, etc. are generally warring against each other. Occasionally an innocent person gets caught in the crossfire. As I said above, these professional criminals will have guns regardless of the law. At least they're knocking each other off to some degree. Willowz wrote: Nowadays the government can be changed without guns. Absolutely true in normal times. Maybe not true in abnormal times. World history is instructive. I don't think that the human race is any different today. Willowz wrote: If nowadays we have the National Guard and the Police, who needs the general population to take there jobs? True, but there is an issue with response time. A crime can be completed and the criminal can be on his way by the time the police arrive. Folks, I have an element of pragmatism too. The kind of gun violence that would likely be reduced the most with strict gun control would be suicides, accidents, and domestic incidents. I did a little research on the statistics, and suicides and accidents are responsible for maybe 20% of gun deaths. Compared to auto accidents, other accidents, hospital malpractice, diseases, and all other causes of death, the rate of gun deaths is miniscule, even in the US. It is a truism that is true, that if people who are prone to violence can't get their hands on a gun, they will find another weapon. A gun is a more efficient weapon, but even a computer mouse could be used as a weapon. I think that the real issue is one of culture. The majority of americans are happy with their culture, violent as it is. They don't want people telling them what to do.
I have a love affair with Socrates but I only know him in a Platonic way.

Willowz
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Posted 06/29/09 - 11:56 PM:	#22
From what I remember swstephe was criticizing coriolis. I just don't know what was there. coriolis wrote: Severe gun control may reduce gun deaths, but could increase crime overall. I don't agree. If weapons were illegal, they would be hard to get into the country(US). Guns are loud and leave behind a mess. They would be the easiest contraband to confiscate. Keda I remember that you didn't care if there wasn't any gun registration. I would have to disagree since that is to much responsibility in the hands of society. The government is there to protect the citizen. You also said something about SSRIs and the problem with drugs. I also read about that and found it amazing. These antidepressants should help. In these cases they did the opposite. SSRIs cause a drastic decrease in REM cycles during sleep. While in depression, REM cycles are increased by the organism. The higher amounts of serotonin can develop tolerance in the synapses. SSREs could be a better approach than the classical method. Pharmaceutical drugs are a lesser problem than guns at the moment.
This song will prepare you for a good smile.

keda
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Posted 06/30/09 - 04:37 AM:	#23
Apparently posts were lost during the last update, I'll see if I can remember what I wrote... Makarismos wrote: do Nuclear weapons make us all safer? would it be better to have them, or to not have them? Safer for you if you have them when other countries do, and less safer when you don't have them and other countries obtain them. I suppose what we have is a difference between pragmatism and idealism. Ideally it would be better if no one had guns, pragmatically we must empirically research weather possession of a gun by an individual helps to keep them safe. If it does not (and without training I don't see how it could), then remove them. It is assumed here that you have the responsibility over the safety of other humans. If however someone owns a gun, or anything for that matter, it is their right to use it for whatever purpose they wish, except in so far it violates the equal rights of others. Willowz wrote: Keda I remember that you didn't care if there wasn't any gun registration. I would have to disagree since that is to much responsibility in the hands of society. The government is there to protect the citizen. The responsibility doesn't magically disappear just because you delegate it to the government. Only by people taking responsibility for themselves, will irresponsible use of guns diminish. The government is there to protect the rights of the people, including the right to not be murdered, however also the right to use guns responsibly. It is not right for the government to violate one right in order to protect the other. What bothers me with the shootings is that these people have serious mental problems due to use of SSRIs. While I'm not for criminlizing drugs, I consider it a serious problem in society when such mentally harmful substance is being sold as medication. Guns don't cause violence, people do, and that is why we should be concerned over the mental health of people rather than trying to babysit society which only leads to people becoming even more irresponsible. Btw, I'm in general against the use of medication against depression, as that is a natural healthy response of the body to real world problems, the cause of which should be treated, rather than the symptom.
All about making money Free Europe Now How to fix your country In thought, men distance themselves from nature in order thus imaginatively to present it to themselves--but only in order to determine how it is to be dominated - Adorno and Horkheimer

Willowz
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Posted 06/30/09 - 05:45 AM:	#24
keda wrote: The responsibility doesn't magically disappear just because you delegate it to the government. Only by people taking responsibility for themselves, will irresponsible use of guns diminish. The government is there to protect the rights of the people, including the right to not be murdered, however also the right to use guns responsibly. It is not right for the government to violate one right in order to protect the other. The responsibility does not disappear but the risk of unwanted death does. Not everybody can take responsibility for themselves. The government is there to take care of people. If you look into these examples you will see that people are not responsible.==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown (Where 918 people died) ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_(Buddhist_group) (The Aum Shinrikyo organization had the societies elite. They worked together to create sarin gas.) keda wrote: Guns don't cause violence, people do, and that is why we should be concerned over the mental health of people rather than trying to baby sit society which only leads to people becoming even more irresponsible. If guns don't cause violence and people do, then why give people guns? You know that people can be violent by nature. A perfectly sane man can go insane for some reason. Edited by Willowz on 06/30/09 - 05:50 AM
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wuliheron
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Posted 06/30/09 - 06:38 AM:	#25
The vast majority of murders in the US are crimes of passion committed by friends and family in the heat of the moment. In other countries where guns are rare people tend to resort to less lethal methods of attacking each other in the heat of the moment because that is all that is available to them. For many americans the reason for maintaining the right to bear arms despite any social problems they might entail is that it helps to preserve government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Just as having the right to vote and own property empowers the people, so does owning fire arms. If some wanna be dictator comes along, for example, they will find themselves confronted and resisted by legions of angry citizens with hand guns and automatic weapons. No doubt if the right to bear arms were not originally enshrined in the constitution the early revolutionaries would have told the government what many americans would today: They can take my guns when they pry them from my cold dead fingers. Although small arms seem trivial compared to tanks, bombs, and missiles there are many cases in modern history where they have triumped. Despite politicians denouncing many civil uprisings as terrorism and swearing they will never deal with terrorists, the simple truth is politicians and societies frequently lie just as individuals do. The Irish Republican Army Sin Fane, for example, represented a significant and oppressed minority that slowly won the concessions they demanded despite being labeled terrorists and consistently being told no one would ever bargan with them. Eventually they traded their weapons for England pulling out of Irish politics altogether. One of the current problems with small arms sales in the US is that the laws are not uniform. People from northern cities such as New York come south to states like my own Viriginia were they can more easily buy guns in quantity for resale up north on the black market. It is mostly conservative politicians dragging their feet in the mud on such issues that has delayed reforms, but even conservative politics change over time. Still, even such reforms will likely not have much of an impact on the murder rates. As long the damand for small arms is present people will find sources from which to buy them just as they can easily find illegal drugs despite massive attempts to crack down on the illegal trade. A complete ban on small arms in the US, even just hand guns, is so far outside the range of possibilities for the foreseeable future as to be laughable. Weapons are the largest manufactured export of the US and we are the largest exporter of guns in the world. We invented much of the technology used today to manufacturer them and by some estimates there are more gun dealers in the US than gas stations. The Mattel Toy company, for example, manufacturers the M-16 rifle because of their expertese in plastics manufacturing. Historically the most powerful nations always have the most advanced weapons technology and the largest production of weapons so this comes as no surprise. If and when the US falls off this pedestal then it might consider strong gun control measures. As it is, there are just too many vested interested both public and private.

wuliheron
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Posted 06/30/09 - 06:43 AM:	#26
P.S.- I have never owned a gun, I don't want a gun, and I don't like guns; nor am I in favor of others owning guns. This is merely my view of why the US has so many guns and why its regulation of them is so antiquated.

xzJoel
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Posted 06/30/09 - 06:45 AM:	#27
Just a quick comment on nuclear weapons. If you follow the course of history and the death toll from wars, I think you will find that nuclear weapons have in fact made the world a safer place. It is no longer possible to amass a huge land army and try to take over a country because when faced with immanent destruction, a nuclear power can simply push a button and annihilate you, your army, and most every other worthwhile thing in your country (or on the planet). Weapons of mass destruction have simply changed the dynamic of war to such a point that it is not possible for two nuclear powers to go to war with one another. It is either mutual destruction or proxy wars in relatively meaningless places. If (or rather when) the world starts to run low on resources, weapons of mass destruction will ensure that certain nations survive and other nations are blown into oblivion should they step out of line. When oil and water runs out, you can be relatively certain that those countries with nuclear weapons will go on, but those without such weapons will live (if at all) off of the good will of the powerful nations. Absent something amazing happening, there will never again be the threat of a mass land invasion of the US, most of Europe, Russia, China, Japan, or even Israel. (Though Israel is the least certain since its military power is so small compared to the aggressors surrounding it, that they aggressors may be able to survive a nuclear attack by Israel.) All in all, the world is a safer place because of nuclear weapons. It will remain a safer place so long as they continue to exist. Even non-Americans are given greater safety because countries like China and Russia are able to place a check on American imperialism/colonialism. (Or whatever the new word is for non-conquest hegemony.)
Make a joyous noise onto the lord... Not a good one, just a joyous one.

keda
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Posted 06/30/09 - 08:09 AM:	#28
The government is not there to take care of people, nor does it ever do a good job of doing so but uses it as an excuse when it does the exact opposite. Willowz wrote: If you look into these examples you will see that people are not responsible.==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown (Where 918 people died) Peanuts to the number of people dying due to unrestrained government, most of which happened after the people were disarmed. Government is the number one cause of unnatural death, and it has always become unrestrained due to people who thought the government's function is to take care of the people. The very people who take it upon themselves to babysit and control the whole society are the very people who are least fit for such a task. History is a bloody testament to this, but sadly it is repeated time and time again by people who never studied it. If guns don't cause violence and people do, then why give people guns? The government is a much more dangerous gun for most people to handle. Everything it does, it does so by means of guns, by means of force, by it coercing people to comply. It creates nothing, but is only a powerful means of destruction. Caring is never anything that you need a gun for, which is why the government is unfit for that purpose.
All about making money Free Europe Now How to fix your country In thought, men distance themselves from nature in order thus imaginatively to present it to themselves--but only in order to determine how it is to be dominated - Adorno and Horkheimer

wuliheron
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Posted 06/30/09 - 12:41 PM:	#29
Many would say the same thing for corporations, asserting that they have all the rights of an individual and none of the responsibilities. It seems this has been a problem of large organizations of any kind throughout history and is among the reasons why they have evolved to become so complex.

keda
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Posted 06/30/09 - 03:30 PM:	#30
Corporations are the aristocrats of old, granted uncontracted for immunities by the corporatist state, similar to tax reliefs granted by the king. Once again the state is the vessel of exploitation. Whoever thought feudalism was ever abolished must have been naive.
All about making money Free Europe Now How to fix your country In thought, men distance themselves from nature in order thus imaginatively to present it to themselves--but only in order to determine how it is to be dominated - Adorno and Horkheimer

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