mistermack wrote:piscator wrote:
Australians somehow magically having the right to keep arms either would or would not increase annual deaths, that depends upon you as individual actors. But it would definitely be a liberty and degree of freedom you don't currently enjoy, either in reality or internet mortal combat.
That's completely wrong. In your head, people only GAIN a degree of freedom by having the right to keep arms. What about the freedom that they LOSE when that happens?
Right now, I can have the normal interactions of life with complete strangers, in the knowledge that the chances that they are carrying a gun are vanishingly small.
And you believe that your paranoia takes precedence over the other person's personal safety against criminal attack? The mere possession of a gun doesn't even begin to mean that you are in greater danger. In fact, at least here in the US, the possession of a gun by a law-abiding person substantially increases YOUR personals safety even if you don't carry one.
If my next-door neighbour is beating the shit out of his little son on his front lawn, I can intervene, and take my chances, knowing at least that he isn't going to emerge in a rage, holding a gun.
Or, you could have your own gun and use it if necessary to compel obedience and submission to arrest while you await the police.
The right to keep guns pervades all life in the US, and you are so used to it, you don't appreciate the benefits of not having it.
Forest/trees fallacy. Nobody needs a gun until and unless they need one, but when they come to need one, they need one right now. Not six hours from now carried by a specialized SWAT team as was the case in Port Arthur. Not sixty minutes from now as was also the case in Port Arthur. Not six minutes from now as is the case the majority of the time the police are called to respond to a critical incident. Not sixty second from now, which is how long it might take to retrieve a gun from a gun safe, assemble it and load it. Not six seconds from now, after your attacker has stabbed, beaten or shot you to death. Right. Fucking. Now. Maybe six-tenths of a second but even that is too long sometimes. It's always far better for you to have your gun, have it assembled and loaded and in firing ready position before the attacker is capable of commencing the attack.
If you could guarantee me that nobody I ever encounter is armed with any sort of weapon at all, including fists and feet, then I might feel comfortable not being armed. But so long as there is any chance at all that I might encounter an assailant intent on doing me great physical injury or killing me I will demand to be permitted to keep and bear arms for self defense. My doing so presents no risk to anyone other than such an attacker, so your paranoia about encountering an armed person is vacuous and irrational.
The only person who might be carrying a weapon of any kind you need to fear is a criminal intent on using it to harm you. Since it is utterly impossible for even you to predict which of the many people you come into contact with is actually intent on killing or harming you, and since it's far too late for you to go and get a defensive weapon once the attack has commenced, the only reasonable and rational course of action is to always be prepared to defend yourself. And to do that effectively, there is no better or more convenient tool available right now than a concealed handgun.
If you were to be carrying a gun, do you think that your fellow citizens would be thinking rationally by being afraid of you? If so, that means that you know you are unfit to carry a gun because you cannot be trusted to do so peaceably. According to the rhetoric here, no one on earth can be trusted to carry a gun peaceably...except the police and military perhaps.
That sounds quite paranoid and deranged to me. I encounter armed citizens all the time and have never has a problem with any of the law-abiding ones.
It's like living on a dung heap. After a while, you become totally unaware of the smell.
But visitors notice it straight away, and can't believe that you want to live like that.
It's better than living in mortal fear of every other person in your community, so much fear in fact that you don't trust them to act responsibly in carrying something as simple and non-lethal as OC spray or Mace.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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I am impressed
