Guns Because

[Blind groper]

I have been away for a couple weeks, so will not try to catch up with the umpteen posts on this torrid subject.

Friend of mine just got back from New York. While he was there, a bunch of police opened fire on a suspect. They shot 11 innocent by standers (according to my friend) before they brought down the suspect. Fortunately, none of those shot were killed. Luck or just lousy marksmanship?

[Tyrannical]

I have been away for a couple weeks, so will not try to catch up with the umpteen posts on this torrid subject.

Friend of mine just got back from New York. While he was there, a bunch of police opened fire on a suspect. They shot 11 innocent by standers (according to my friend) before they brought down the suspect. Fortunately, none of those shot were killed. Luck or just lousy marksmanship?

A combination of bad luck, poor marksmanship, and inability of bystanders to move to the prone position quickly enough.

[Seth]

This is what is important, I have the attire to open and concealed carry and oppose the government.
Y"all be jealous, I know you are.

Include me out. I am that where I live, Australians' opposition to their governments is to vote them out of office on a regular basis, that quality media are able to expose scams by politicians and that we are free to successfully pressure governments' initiative to abandon fascist programs such as the introduction of the "Australia Card".

Until you can't because they won't give up power...then you're fucked.

In our history governments have been removed via the ballot box on many occasions, and never in Australia's existence as a nation for 112 years has there ever been an occasion where governments thus thrown out have any of them entertained the thought of resisting the will of the electorate by undemocratic means for even one moment. There is no indication that this is going to change in the future.

There never is, until there is. And by then it's far too late to try to arm the citizenry to retake the nation from a despot. That's rather the point.

[Seth]

The probability that an Australian government in my lifetime will become a tyrannical police state in reality, rather than in the paranoid delusions of extremists from the left or the right is so close to zero I will not give it a passing thought.

Slaves never do. Neither do subjects. They just do what they are told...always.

And if any tendency in that direction were to emerge, I would rather trust in an active democratic process and a (relatively) free press as a bulwark against it rather than survivalists with an unhealthy gun fetish.

Trusting a democratic process is always preferable to rebellion, unless the democratic process has been corrupted or has ceased to exist. That's when rebellion and revolution are called for. As I've said so often before, by the time that the need for an armed citizenry becomes either obvious or necessary to secure freedom and put down a tyrant, if the citizenry is not already armed it's far too late to arm them because the first thing despots do is disarm the citizenry. Always. Just ask the Syrian rebels...the ones who aren't dead from Sarin gas.

As an aside, the current example of Syria makes me wonder whether attempts to overturn a dictator like Assad are really worth it, given the deaths, destruction and misery, particularly when Islamic fundamentalist are likely to pick up the pieces when the horror finally ends...

It depends on what the people want by way of liberty. Certainly it's my opinion that the Shah of Iran was a much better leader who took better care of the people and the economy than the Mullahs and Asswipemadinejad, but not everybody thinks so. Then again, many Iranian expats agree with me.

The point being that only an armed citizenry is capable of determining their own future in the face of despotism from either end of the political spectrum. Unarmed civilians are slaves to whomever has the power to subdue them. This is how it's always been throughout history.

You, evidently, are doomed to repeat history.

I prefer to learn from it.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I have been away for a couple weeks, so will not try to catch up with the umpteen posts on this torrid subject.

Friend of mine just got back from New York. While he was there, a bunch of police opened fire on a suspect. They shot 11 innocent by standers (according to my friend) before they brought down the suspect. Fortunately, none of those shot were killed. Luck or just lousy marksmanship?

Sounds like this incident from August last year:-
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/25/justi ... ?hpt=hp_t1

[Blind groper]

Sounds like this incident from August last year:-

Could be. My friend was a bit vague about it, except for the exact figure of 11, which he may have got wrong.

Here in NZ, such events never happen, since front line police do not carry guns, and the citizenry do not have hand guns. On the rare occasion when a person gets crazy with a fire arm, our very highly trained elite police squad, the Armed Offenders Unit, gets called in. They have an excellent record of not shooting innocent by standers.

[Blind groper]

You, evidently, are doomed to repeat history.

Nope.

Australians (like NZers) have a stable, non corrupt government, and they are doomed to live peaceful and secure lives without the ills of an armed state.

[Seth]

Sounds like this incident from August last year:-

Could be. My friend was a bit vague about it, except for the exact figure of 11, which he may have got wrong.

Here in NZ, such events never happen, since front line police do not carry guns, and the citizenry do not have hand guns. On the rare occasion when a person gets crazy with a fire arm, our very highly trained elite police squad, the Armed Offenders Unit, gets called in. They have an excellent record of not shooting innocent by standers.

If this had happened in the UK not only would bystanders have been shot, but the police would be dead. The perp was a deranged shooter who had already killed several people at TWO locations and was just about to shoot the cops when they put him down. Their shooting skills were deficient, but then again they were about to be dead and had just a second or two to respond.

By the time you're "elite police squad" would have gotten there, the shooting would have been over and many people would have been dead BECAUSE nobody had a gun with which to defend themselves OR OTHERS in the very, very few seconds someone has to respond to such an event.

You still don't seem to be able to comprehend this simple fact. When these sort of things happen you don't have six minutes, you don't have three minutes, you don't have three SECONDS to do something or die. If there's nobody with a gun but the bad guy present at that instant, more people will die than necessary.

All of the civilians in this shooting were wounded primarily by ricochets and splash, none of them seriously as I recall. Better than than being executed by a madman.

[Seth]

You, evidently, are doomed to repeat history.

Nope.

Australians (like NZers) have a stable, non corrupt government, and they are doomed to live peaceful and secure lives without the ills of an armed state.

At the moment. For now. If you remain lucky. if you're not lucky, you're fucked. You trust in luck, I trust in H&K.

[Blind groper]

Seth

Re the armed police.
Here in NZ, we have very few murders after the police are called. Mostly, murders happen before, and even then, such murders are not often carried out with firearms, and almost never with hand guns.

An armed offender, when accosted by our elite police, knows damn well that it is over. He will often hole up in a 'secure' place. Mostly that results in a long wait. Our police are not trigger happy thugs, but highly trained professionals who try to avoid loss of life. Their best tool is words and intelligence. Using those tools, they generally get their man with no further shooting.

However, on the rare occasions where shooting is required, they use rifles, and they are very, very accurate with them. A shooting of an innocent by stander by NZ police is a rare event. Not unknown, but rare. Any person shot by the police leads to a protracted legal investigation, and the shooter will be grilled without mercy.

On your paranoid belief that we need to be armed to avoid a corrupt government.

It is, and always has been a bullshit idea. First, there is no sign that any of the advanced western nations are heading in that direction. Second, no government can become despotic without the support of the military, which is very unlikely in any advanced democracy. Third, if it ever happened, and armed insurrection was needed, the weapons involved would become available by a range of means, as the IRA so clearly demonstrated. There is absolutely no need for citizenry to be armed. In addition, in any such situation, large parts of the armed forces would join the insurrection, and bring their weapons with them.

Besides which, it is hand guns that need to be banned, and hand guns would be of very limited value in such an insurrection.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Sounds like this incident from August last year:-

Could be. My friend was a bit vague about it, except for the exact figure of 11, which he may have got wrong.

Here in NZ, such events never happen, since front line police do not carry guns, and the citizenry do not have hand guns. On the rare occasion when a person gets crazy with a fire arm, our very highly trained elite police squad, the Armed Offenders Unit, gets called in. They have an excellent record of not shooting innocent by standers.

If this had happened in the UK not only would bystanders have been shot, but the police would be dead. The perp was a deranged shooter who had already killed several people at TWO locations and was just about to shoot the cops when they put him down. Their shooting skills were deficient, but then again they were about to be dead and had just a second or two to respond.

By the time you're "elite police squad" would have gotten there, the shooting would have been over and many people would have been dead BECAUSE nobody had a gun with which to defend themselves OR OTHERS in the very, very few seconds someone has to respond to such an event.

You still don't seem to be able to comprehend this simple fact. When these sort of things happen you don't have six minutes, you don't have three minutes, you don't have three SECONDS to do something or die. If there's nobody with a gun but the bad guy present at that instant, more people will die than necessary.

All of the civilians in this shooting were wounded primarily by ricochets and splash, none of them seriously as I recall. Better than than being executed by a madman.

This sounds like a different incident or something. According to reports, he only killed one work colleague and had two rounds left in his weapon which had an eight (?) round mag....Not that it's important or anything. I just thought I'd mention it for the sake of accuracy.

[Hermit]

This is what is important, I have the attire to open and concealed carry and oppose the government.
Y"all be jealous, I know you are.

Include me out. I am that where I live, Australians' opposition to their governments is to vote them out of office on a regular basis, that quality media are able to expose scams by politicians and that we are free to successfully pressure governments' initiative to abandon fascist programs such as the introduction of the "Australia Card".

Until you can't because they won't give up power...then you're fucked.

In our history governments have been removed via the ballot box on many occasions, and never in Australia's existence as a nation for 112 years has there ever been an occasion where governments thus thrown out have any of them entertained the thought of resisting the will of the electorate by undemocratic means for even one moment. There is no indication that this is going to change in the future.

There never is, until there is. And by then it's far too late to try to arm the citizenry to retake the nation from a despot. That's rather the point.

May I suggest that while Australia and the USA have a lot in common, you might want to familiarise yourself about some profound historical and cultural differences between between the two nations?

To begin with, the US government structure is set up as a republic. Australia's is that of a democracy. The US had to resort to ridding itself from the yoke of colonialism through massive military actions. Rather than through military actions, Australia became a nation through discussions and negotiations that culminated in simultaneous Acts of Parliament in Great Britain and downunder.

In its entire history Australia's bloodiest confrontation between government forces and an opposing militia resulted in 27 deaths. That battle became known as the Eureka Stockade, and took place in 1854. After the militia was smashed, about 120 arrest were made, 13 men were taken to court, and the severest sentence handed down was six months of imprisonment, of which the defendant served three before being released. The stockade's leader was elected unopposed to become a member of the Victorian parliament two years after the rebellion.

We never had a civil war, nor are we in a habit of assassinating or trying to kill our politicians. The most unusual deaths recorded among them were those of one Prime Minister who disappeared while scuba diving off a beach in rough seas, and a retired opposition leader who had a heart attack while doing what men do when they employ the services of a sex worker.

So, you see, we don't have the history of violence that the US has. It is therefore not at all likely that violent conflagrations will develop in the future. We successfully fight any attempts by governments to overreach their mandate through words, and our governments find it equally outlandish to resort to armed force in order to enforce their will. Our battlefields used to be conducted by manoeuvring ink on paper. Now it's keyboard to blog. The location could be the High Court, newspapers, the internet, protest marches and so on, but there is approximately a snowflake's chance in hell that they'll take place in the shape of physical battles battles between government forces and militias.

Speaking of militias, have you ever wondered if perhaps the brownshirts and later on the blackshirts were crucial to Hitler's rise to power?

[JimC]

Hermit wrote:

May I suggest that while Australia and the USA have a lot in common, you might want to familiarise yourself about some profound historical and cultural differences between between the two nations?

To begin with, the US government structure is set up as a republic. Australia's is that of a democracy. The US had to resort to ridding itself from the yoke of colonialism through massive military actions. Rather than through military actions, Australia became a nation through discussions and negotiations that culminated in simultaneous Acts of Parliament in Great Britain and downunder.

In its entire history Australia's bloodiest confrontation between government forces and an opposing militia resulted in 27 deaths. That battle became known as the Eureka Stockade, and took place in 1854. After the militia was smashed, about 120 arrest were made, 13 men were taken to court, and the severest sentence handed down was six months of imprisonment, of which the defendant served three before being released. The stockade's leader was elected unopposed to become a member of the Victorian parliament two years after the rebellion.

We never had a civil war, nor are we in a habit of assassinating or trying to kill our politicians. The most unusual deaths recorded among them were those of one Prime Minister who disappeared while scuba diving off a beach in rough seas, and a retired opposition leader who had a heart attack while doing what men do when they employ the services of a sex worker.

So, you see, we don't have the history of violence that the US has. It is therefore not at all likely that violent conflagrations will develop in the future. We successfully fight any attempts by governments to overreach their mandate through words, and our governments find it equally outlandish to resort to armed force in order to enforce their will. Our battlefields used to be conducted by manoeuvring ink on paper. Now it's keyboard to blog. The location could be the High Court, newspapers, the internet, protest marches and so on, but there is approximately a snowflake's chance in hell that they'll take place in the shape of physical battles battles between government forces and militias.

Speaking of militias, have you ever wondered if perhaps the brownshirts and later on the blackshirts were crucial to Hitler's rise to power?

Well said!

[Gallstones]

[Gallstones]

Anaconda's Third Stand Down

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