Gun Control

[RedDenver]

3 minutes ago, knapplc said:

Even if we take your interpretation at face value (for argument's sake only), no American-grown tyrant could be overthrown by the citizens.  I get the impression the gun nutters feel like if the government starts enslaving us, they see their like-minded compatriots banding together to resist and ultimately defeat the "bad guys." 

 

Problem is, that's impossible. The bad guys would throw the Cliven Bundy's of that insurrection in jail. They would be demolished by radically superior firepower, and any of them who survived their encounter with Apaches & M1s & F21s would be rounded up and carted off to rot in jail as traitors.  Americans cannot, with light arms & a plucky attitude, overthrow the United States government.  Impossible.  Cannot be done.  It can only be done in the ballot box - which is the hallmark of a healthy democracy. 

I agree with everything else in your post, but I'll continue to push back on this argument. There's absolutely no way to know whether what you're saying is true or not. The rebels in Iraq and Afghanistan which the US military cannot conquer after more than a decade give ample reason to think that US citizens could to the same or something similar.

 

There's a ton of variables , here's a few:

• Would all US military and police follow orders to kill/arrest citizens?
• Would rebels wear signs and let the government easily know who they are?
• Would the US be the same at some future date in economics or military/police might as it is today?
• Would government killings/arrests reduce the number of rebels or cause their numbers to grow?
• How does propaganda by both sides affect the reaction of the larger populace?
• Do other countries/militaries get involved?

To declare the result of such future conflict as an absolute certainty isn't being realistic, even if the chances of an armed insurrection being successful are very slim.

[Guy Chamberlin]

It's a potentially unpopular theory, as it seems to fly in the face of the much-needed female empowerment movement, but there's a school of thought that a generation of young men don't feel empowered either, and being the generation weaned off traditional male role models, and thrust into a world less stable than their fathers', and tacitly blamed for the violent nature of all human history, we have a bunch of broken boys out there with no idea how to be men. 

 

[NM11046]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

 

I read someplace that the vast majority of these shooters have one thing in common...the lack of a father in the home, their lives, etc. So a lack of morality, breakdown in the family, etc. may have a lot more to do with this than access to firearms.

That may be true - I'd love to see the stats ...  can you share it?  (not trying for snark here - just honestly curious on how the numbers break down ... especially vs the overall population.  How does one determine the 'lack of a father'?  Not living in the home?  Not paying child support?  How long had/has he been "away" to be considered an impact?  How do they gauge 'morality" since that definition differs from person to person?)

[Ric Flair]

2 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

And yet, the people most vocal about their ideological opposition to tyranny voted in and actively cheer for the closest thing to a tyrant America has had in generations.  Bizarre juxtaposition.

 

 

It was written a decade after we had thrown off the yoke of England, at a time when America had no standing army, and needed an armed citizenry to combat foreign invasion, when the most powerful battlefield weapons were the muzzle-loading cannon and flintlocks.  It is no more relevant to today's America than the 18th Amendment, and like the 18th, should be repealed and replaced.  The wording isn't even sound grammar:  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  It was written so poorly that it's been massaged and abused by lawyers and lobbyists to represent something that wasn't even thinkable by the Founding Fathers.

 

Even if we take your interpretation at face value (for argument's sake only), no American-grown tyrant could be overthrown by the citizens.  I get the impression the gun nutters feel like if the government starts enslaving us, they see their like-minded compatriots banding together to resist and ultimately defeat the "bad guys." 

 

Problem is, that's impossible. The bad guys would throw the Cliven Bundy's of that insurrection in jail. They would be demolished by radically superior firepower, and any of them who survived their encounter with Apaches & M1s & F21s would be rounded up and carted off to rot in jail as traitors.  Americans cannot, with light arms & a plucky attitude, overthrow the United States government.  Impossible.  Cannot be done.  It can only be done in the ballot box - which is the hallmark of a healthy democracy. 

 

Rather than fighting to keep & bear arms that are 1,000% irrelevant to the purpose quoted above, you should be fighting tooth & nail to keep Americans' right to vote sacrosanct. Sure, it may not bother you today that gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, poll taxes and such tactics are being wielded right now by local, state & federal governments, but that's because the party you claim is currently doing these things.  But if you grant Republicans the right to do this unchecked, and Democrats rise to power, what will you do to regain the rights you ceded by failing to stand up for your fellow voters?

 

 

Agreed. But we will only find out through reasonable discourse, not through the kind of nonsense provided by our recent, departed friend. Inviting that kind of person to a board like this is the opposite of trying to find common ground. 

 

 

Then go the way of France, Germany, England, Sweden, Japan, China, Denmark, Canada, or any other first-world nation that has far fewer guns and far fewer gun deaths than America.  Australia's method isn't the only method, and their answer may not be ours. But every other first-world nation has this figured out.  If we're the best nation in the world, surely our children should be able to attend school without worrying if today is the day a classmate - or a recently expelled classmate, in the case of Parkland - is going to shoot them. 

 

Something has to wake this country up. The question is, if it isn't Parkland, if it isn't Las Vegas, if it isn't Sandy Hook... what will it take to have a reasonable discussion?

 

 

America had similar fears about invading Japan in World War II.  It's why we crafted so many Purple Heart medals before the invasion that we were still passing them out 50 years later. 

 

Japan's populace didn't have firearm ownership at remotely the rate America has today, but still they could have  - and would have - resisted invasion.  What makes Americans so weak that we couldn't do the same with or without firearms?

 

Have you ever seen photos of vehicles kids used to drive to high schools? Did you notice how many of them had gun racks fully loaded with deadly weapons? It strikes me that the problem is a lot more complicated than simple access to guns and one that trying to take guns away simply won’t solve.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, NM11046 said:

That may be true - I'd love to see the stats ...  can you share it?  (not trying for snark here - just honestly curious on how the numbers break down ... especially vs the overall population.  How does one determine the 'lack of a father'?  Not living in the home?  Not paying child support?  How long had/has he been "away" to be considered an impact?  How do they gauge 'morality" since that definition differs from person to person?)

 

There has been quite a bit of discussion on the topic. It’s pretty striking.

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markmeckler/2018/02/27-deadliest-mass-shooters-26-one-thing-common/

[Ric Flair]

2 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

It's a potentially unpopular theory, as it seems to fly in the face of the much-needed female empowerment movement, but there's a school of thought that a generation of young men don't feel empowered either, and being the generation weaned off traditional male role models, and thrust into a world less stable than their fathers', and tacitly blamed for the violent nature of all human history, we have a bunch of broken boys out there with no idea how to be men. 

 

 

As an educator myself, I can tell you there is a wealth of research on this. As society has sought to empower girls, boys have been forgotten about. 

[Guy Chamberlin]

8 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

 

Have you ever seen photos of vehicles kids used to drive to high schools? Did you notice how many of them had gun racks fully loaded with deadly weapons? It strikes me that the problem is a lot more complicated than simple access to guns and one that trying to take guns away simply won’t solve.

 

Yeah, I lived that. Again, it is more complicated, but that doesn't mean access to guns isn't part of it.

 

And shotgun racks in duck hunting country don't explain away automatic weapons arsenals, an NRA with a doomsday prepper mindset, and the unprecedented run on ammunition during the administration of America's first black president. 

Edited March 3, 2018 by Guy Chamberlin

[Guy Chamberlin]

2 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

 

As an educator myself, I can tell you there is a wealth of research on this. As society has sought to empower girls, boys have been forgotten about. 

 

And hopefully we're smart enough to look at the problem as a whole, and not blame empowering girls. 

[zoogs]

It's really interesting, isn't it, how buying into reverse discrimination tends to be such a broad spectrum thing.

[zoogs]

So here's my strong conviction, while I'm at it: feminism and empowering women is one of the big movements of our time, and it is for *every* body. The toxic and regressive elements of the standing patriarchy weren't good for men, either -- aside from the dicks like Trump and say, the Mooch, the kind of people it especially rewards. There's a better, more fully human way to treat ourselves and others.

[knapplc]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

As an educator myself, I can tell you there is a wealth of research on this. As society has sought to empower girls, boys have been forgotten about. 

 

Hah! That's such balderdash.

 

I was raised in the Empowered Women Era.  I live and work among amazing people, men and women, who by their own merits are whole people, fully fledged, and with no limit to their emotional power. 

 

To claim that carving a niche for women necessarily means disempowering men, or "forgetting about" them, is silly.  There is more than enough room for empowered boys and girls, men and women. 

 

Who and what I am, working with, for, above and beneath women and men, is completely unfounded on the empowerment of others.  I am boundless, and my ceiling is my own personal limit.  It is a poverty that someone would think that empowering one gender (or race, or religion, etc) necessarily means removing the power from another.  I feel sorry for people who are so limited in their imagination that they feel that way. 

 

I have a colleague, a person who is clever and capable and nimble of mind and imaginative. That colleague worked their ass off, showed their potential, and is now my superior. And I couldn't be happier for them, for me, or for my organization.  Because that person's ability and achievement has made me and the whole organization better. 

 

What gender is that person?  What does it matter?  The organization in which I work is better.  Why would anyone care if that was a man or a woman making it better?

[knapplc]

42 minutes ago, zoogs said:

reverse discrimination

 

This phrase inherently describes a state in which one group is superior to another. It is an anachronism, and should die a silent death. 

[Moiraine]

It's hilarious hearing that boys have been forgotten when congress is 80% men, men hold 90% of the governorships, even lower % as you go more local, and most boards of directors I've heard of have one or less females on them. I'm not going to get into an argument on income disparity, but I can promise you that women aren't making more money than men.

Give me some actual, real evidence that "boys have been forgotten about." I'm talking things that actually matter and help people in their lives. Percentage of murders committed by males isn't evidence of this. That's been the case since the dawn of time, including when women weren't allowed a say in anything or even given a basic education.


Also, just for some perspective:

Edited March 3, 2018 by Moiraine

[NM11046]

12 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

 

There has been quite a bit of discussion on the topic. It’s pretty striking.

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markmeckler/2018/02/27-deadliest-mass-shooters-26-one-thing-common/

ahhhhh - a quote from a Fox opinion piece on a religion & spirituality site isn't exactly the fact based info I'd sink my teeth into.  And Suzanne Venker is no expert on anything, certainly nothing fact based.

Edit: you know this would be the sort of statistic that could be easily tracked and studied if we allowed the CDC to track and study shootings.  I found some data bases on Mother Jones and other sites that look at mass shooting's stats, but tracking parenteral involvement in the shooters' life isn't one of the criteria they measure.  They do look at mental health diagnosis, which is pretty nebulous, as some are diagnosed with something beforehand, others aren't but that's really dependent on a patient self evaluating that they need help and asking for it (or someone committing them).  

Edited March 3, 2018 by NM11046

[knapplc]

13 hours ago, RedDenver said:

I agree with everything else in your post, but I'll continue to push back on this argument. There's absolutely no way to know whether what you're saying is true or not. The rebels in Iraq and Afghanistan which the US military cannot conquer after more than a decade give ample reason to think that US citizens could to the same or something similar.

 

There's a ton of variables , here's a few:

• Would all US military and police follow orders to kill/arrest citizens?
• Would rebels wear signs and let the government easily know who they are?
• Would the US be the same at some future date in economics or military/police might as it is today?
• Would government killings/arrests reduce the number of rebels or cause their numbers to grow?
• How does propaganda by both sides affect the reaction of the larger populace?
• Do other countries/militaries get involved?

To declare the result of such future conflict as an absolute certainty isn't being realistic, even if the chances of an armed insurrection being successful are very slim.

The US military could easily conquer those holdouts if they changed tactics. We're fighting limited war in those places, designed to limit civilian casualties. If we went in there with the same mindset as the Mongols, we'd have the same success.

 

And if you're objecting to my use of the word "never" regarding US government overthrow, fine, but as it is now, lightly armed citizens will not overthrow our government. Just won't happen.