Guns Help The Weak To Protect Themselves From The Strong.

[GreenStormCloud]

There will always be those who believe that because they are physically stronger then they can do as they please and take what they want, rape whom they please, torture and humiliate as want for their own enjoyment. To oppose them is to be struck and beaten. Government police forces take pictures of the injuries, draw chalk outlines, interview witness, and try to find and prosecute the criminals. Unfortunately, in our modern world, the criminal is usually back on the street before the victims is out of the hospital, or buried.

Criminals do not need guns to be emboldened. On need only look at the higher violent crime rate of Britain, where there is very strict gun control, to see that. The criminal is emboldened by his superior disparity of force. A larger, stronger male has an easy time intimidating and coercing a weaker person into doing his will. His stronger muscles sufficiently embolden him. He needs nothing else.

Even if a person is strong enough to fight off the predatory strong, the day will come when he no longer has that strength. Age eventually saps the strength from all of us, if we are lucky enough to get old.

If the weaker person has a gun, things change radically. Now the criminal’s disparity of force is reversed. The weaker can now do terrible, possibly fatal, damage to the stronger with only a flick of the finger. Even if the criminal also has a gun, that only evens the general force levels. Criminals don’t like that. They don’t go looking for fair fights. They want easy victims, and an armed person has chosen not be an easy victim.

A complete disarming of the populace, even if possible, would only serve the interests of criminals, not of the public. The criminals would rejoice to see the superiority of their muscles restored to primacy.

Enabling the weak to resist those who would prey upon them is a progressive value. Therefore, RKBA is a progressive virtue.

[Captain Hilts]

1. But the weak - women - are most likely to be attacked by someone they know and reluctant to shoot.

Great in theory, but not so practicable.

[GreenStormCloud]

3. So disarming such a woman helps her - how?

How does disarming senior citizens help her?

How does disarming the disabled help her?

How does disarming other law-abiding citizens help her?

First, she needs to get out of there, to a battered woman's shelter. Then, once she is living independently, she needs protection. A restraining order accomplises nothing in real life. It does help prove self-defense if she has to shoot him. A gun gives her the chance to defend herself. You offer her nothing.

I will agree that before one owns a gun for self-defense, one must be mentally ready to use it if that time comes. Hesitation at the time of need can be fatal to the user. A gun is not a magic talisman, it is a tool that must be used properly or not even owned.

[SteveM]

12. So there aren't any examples of women defending themselves with a gun?...

We hear all the time from some gun-control posters that there is an excess of postings showing the use of a firearm in self-defense. Quite a number of these are women. So, in practice it would appear that women ARE using firearms in self-defense. Perhaps your idea is the theory?

[OttavaKarhu]

24. Says who, Captain Guy Fella? You?

[Glassunion]

30. Wait... What?

This must have come from the i just did a study in my basement and here is my conclusion.

[tburnsten]

37. What about disabled, aged, small, or otherwise disadvantaged people?

And I think that was an incredibly wrong and sexist statement you made.

[divideandconquer]

2. That philosophy has worked so well in the USA that we have highest murder rate of advanced nations

That philosophy has worked so well in the USA that we have highest murder rate of advanced nations, while having the highest incarceration rate.

BTW, we have witnessed in last decade the biggest theft of wealth by the powerful and the gun lobby didn't do a damn thing except help reichwing politicians. Irony?
<http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita>

[rd_kent]

4. I think you may have misunderstood the facts.

Gun ownership is at an all time high, while violent crime is at its lowest since 1961.


Now, no one is saying that having MORE guns has produced that result, but the argument that more guns CAUSES more crime is proven to be false.

[TheWraith]

5. You can thank the drug war for our murders and incarceration rate.

Compare the level of poverty in the US to the level of poverty in other countries which have a large proportion of the population owning guns: Canada, Switzerland, elsewhere. You'll find a strikingly high correlation between the poverty level and the level of violence for a number of reasons. Poverty creates a pool of predominantly young black and brown men who have no other options but to join the drug trade and the gang wars that come with it, and nothing left to lose. People who've got hope for the future and economic security aren't willing to kill or be killed over making a living, no matter how many guns you surround them with. Why do you think that the military is disproportionately recruited from the young and underprivileged?

[GreenStormCloud]

9. Excellent post. !!

Indeed, severe poverty does breed hopelessness, and the rest you spoke of.

Add to that extremely abusive households, and a future generations of criminals are made.

Our guns are tools that we have available if the need ever arises to defend ourselves. Until then, they harm no one.

[Buzz cook]

31. And you can thank the gun lobby for electing rightwing politicians

Politicians that believe in draconian drug laws and get kick backs from the prison/industrial complex. Politicians that support cheap labor and thus poverty amongst those young brown and black men.

As far as I can see more death and destruction has been caused by those rightwingers than any other man made cause in the US.

The weak, old, and defenseless are far more likely to die because of lack of health care than from some random thug.

Every penny a liberal spends in support of the gun lobby is a penny freed up for some rightwing hack to use to get elected.

A lieral supporting the gun lobby is like an forest ranger protecting one tree while ignoring the forest fire.

[GreenStormCloud]

32. Democrats get A ratings from the NRA, if they earn them.

The congressional amicus brief to SCOTUS in McDonald V Chicago, in support of gun rights had dozens of Democratic Representatives and Senators signing it.

21 Democratic state attorney generals signed the states amicus brief in support of gun rights in the same case.

Lots of Democrats are on board supporting the right of people to defend themselves, if need be, with guns.

It is obvious that you would strip civil rights from the old, weak, and otherwise defenseless.

BTW - The "gun lobby" is millions of citizens that vote.

[OttavaKarhu]

33. I'll stand my left liberal peacenik queer antiwar antinuke tree huggism...

...up to anybody's on this board. I'm an old fart, too, and I have a head start on a lot of youze.

I am the gun lobby. I and anyone whoever was attacked going into our GYN clinic for a pap smear or our Blue Bus for AIDS testing or our same sex lover's house or walking down the street and kissed him/her/them...and chose not to let anyone make us victims.

Maybe you are ignorant of those pro gun rightwingers like Eleanor Roosevelt or Gene Debs,

[pipoman]

35. Actually what Dems have done

TO THEMSELVES, is like a firefighter standing in front of a burning house shooting water while ignoring the rest of the house. Dems and liberals have not gained any appreciable group of voters for their anti-rights position on guns, yet have lost a huge block of voters. Why would a rightwing group support any Dem or Liberal at all? Answer? They wouldn't. The "gun lobby" is interested in one thing...gun owner rights, they do support Dems and Liberals who support their cause, this is an undeniable fact. You should be urging your Dem nd Liberal elected officials to shut up about and quit pushing failed gun policy (as most of us liberal gun owners do) if you want to level the playing field...simple.

[OttavaKarhu]

34. I object to the racism and classism in your assertions.

Poverty doesn't create criminals. Poverty creates poor people.

Poor people make choices how to spend their lives.

In my predominantly (70%) black home ghetto city, we all faced the same economic violence and injustice.

But we didn't all become criminals, not by a long shot, and I resent and detest the liberal/Democrat assertion that we all were/are so weak, mediocre, and unambitious that we couldn't earn or excel our way out of these background conditions.

Or the assertion that if you see POOR and BROWN then obviously CRIMINAL is going to follow.

This is why I always refused affirmative action efforts on "my" behalf. I didn't want my excellence to be monkeyhumped by liberal Democrats' sense of their own fairygodmother superiority being responsible for my successes, if any. I wanted to earn them fair and square.

If you want to help me as a kid, or my hometown's kids, then quit with this nonsense about how poor brown people have no choice but to become thugs. The reason my friends and relatives who became thugs, became thugs, was that that was their choice. The more bitter truth is that rich white Democrats made a lot of money off those choices--for instance in the Social Work Industry (today called the Nanny State). I can't begin to count the number of those upscale degreed types tried to give me a pass when I was looking for a challenge.

In my experience, excellence was a much harder choice than not trying. Getting involved in crime was very easy. It is for rich white kids too. Peaceful living was a much harder choice than playing testosterone roulette. Education was a much harder choice than dropping out or going into the military with dreams of flying jet fighters or being a wargame hero in a uniform. Being a woman on your own was a much harder choice than getting knocked up.

But that's what real success comes down to: making the harder choice in the name of a better future. Not being rescued by Daddy Democrat, who by the way never lets you forget that you owe him your dumbed down/Special Olympics freedom.

Unfortunately this liberal Democrat view said to all over us, over and over again, that we weren't capable of anything better than the easier choice, and I don't see how that isn't racist in the extreme. ("You're brown, therefore you're doomed. Unless we parcel out Opportunities and Affirmative Action to you, and then of course you will always know that you didn't really earn your way, you got it through politics.")

I always thought it was disturbing how my best teachers were all Republicans, while the Democrats left me feeling queasy and soiled somehow. Even though I spouted H. Rap Brown at them, they were tolerant and caring men and women who didn't care about my politics (squarely left from my teens on). They cared about my desire to work hard, earn my own (and my family's) way, excel, and evolve my own talents and spirit. When they challenged young men and women from my hood to work hard and earn theirs, they were called racists for "expecting too much."

Thank the gods they expected too much of me, my family, and my friends and neighbors who also refused to believe we were second class when others insisted we were. (Mostly liberal Democrats.)

[one-eyed fat man]

36. are you saying military service is for losers?

It is a young man's occupation, mostly because the pointy end of the spear is still largely a physically demanding place to be. Now, perhaps it because I spent 26 years on active duty as a tank commander and tank company First Sergeant I find the notion that military service is only for "hicks, spics and niggers." that is a constant undercurrent in "liberal orthodoxy" to be particularly abhorrent.

Today, the active duty military comprises .5% of the population. The entire living population of military veterans, both combat and non-combat is just about 25 million.

That means 97% of the US population only military experience has been avoidance. So for that bunch who are "too good" to serve, is it convenience or cowardice?

[GreenStormCloud]

6. The incarceration rate is due to drug laws.

I have advocated legalization of drugs. We don't need to jail someone for using MJ.

Very few people commit a murder as their first serious riminal act. You fail to distinguish between LEGAL and ILLEGAL gun ownership. I advocate legal gun ownership, and enforcement and punishment of violations of gun laws. Legal gun owners are rarely involved in any kind of gun crime.

[SteveM]

8. The "gun lobby" didn't clear my sewer line, either...

I find it interesting that you would look to the "gun lobby" for potential solutions to all manner of problems besetting the world, including economic breakdown. What's wrong with the Democratic Party?

You will find that people almost always buy a personal-protection firearm because they are threatened or live in an area which is crime-prone. The action to purchase a firearm is in reaction to criminality, something which has plagued our nation from the beginning.

Finally, you miss the point of the post. The weak can better defend themselves with a firearm. It's self-defense, not social policy...or "philosophy."

[Mugweed]

7. Very black and white

Of course, more people these days are made victim by predatory corporations (supported by right-wing politicans who are supported by the NRA). I supose you are correct; we should all arm ourselves and storm the Board of Directors meetings at each large corporation, dispensing justice to defend the weak <\sarcasm>. It reminds me of a scene from Dogma.

Anyway, if the government decided that all non law-enforcement or military personnel were banned from owning or purchasing any firearm other than a muzzle-loading black powder musket, they would still not be violating the Second Amendment.

[GreenStormCloud]

10. Would you care to say something that makes sense?

If a home invader kicks in your door, what will be your response?

I am specifically addressing street crime, not the rest of society's problems.

[Mugweed]

13. Why make sense?

If a home invader kicks in my door he/she'll either be unhumanly strong and would probably be impervious to bullets, or will take so long kicking that the police will get here long before they make any headway.

Anybody know where to get a shoulder holster for a 6-month old? He's pretty weak and needs to be armed.

[rd_kent]

21. Wow. Just wow. Another fine example of what I am talking about.

[tburnsten]

38. Why, do yo live in a bank vault?

[SteveM]

11. Umm, not sure what you mean by "black and white,"

The issue is self-defense, not some fanciful, cinematic overhaul of the world economic order. I don't much care for the NRA, but if you want to REALLY keep them off your back, please quit allowing gun-control to remain the rotten platform plank of the Democratic Party and part of President Obama's outlook; speak out against holding onto this 24-carat loser. Then the NRA may go back to the more prosaic activities they were involved in, instead of being a pain in the ass. It really is YOUR CHOICE.

Your second statement banning most guns for individuals IS a direct violation of the Second Amendment. I think you know this, but choose to repeat it like some Tibetan monk chant.

Don't get any press-ink on your hands when using the Internet.

[X_Digger]

14. Balderdash!

"if the government decided that all non law-enforcement or military personnel were banned from owning or purchasing any firearm other than a muzzle-loading black powder musket, they would still not be violating the Second Amendment."

And if the government decided that all non-law-enforcement or military personnel were banned from owning or purchasing any writing implement other than a gutenberg press or quill penn, they would still not be violating the First Amendment?

See how silly that sounds when you apply that to other protections ensconced in our bill of rights?

What jurisprudence, philosophical theory, or social precedent do you use to come to this conclusion?

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ernesto]

17. "Especially the weak in the head."

PERFECT!

[east texas lib]

18. Ooohhh...

You's a killer, bunny.

[eqfan592]

19. lol, oh really now?

Thanks for demonstrating your capacity for rational thought! ;)

[rd_kent]

20. Thanks for making my point for me!

[jeepnstein]

22. What?

Is that the best appeal to emotion you can throw at the topic? How about a fit of self-righteous indignation or a dose of moral superiority to go with it?

[GreenStormCloud]

23. Well, I really don't think I would survive a heat-butting contest with a mugger.

I am a senior citizen. I would fare very poorly if attacked by a young violent felon. If you are lucky, someday you will be an old fart too.

Violent crime is a reality. Some deny that reality because it upsets their view of the world. I accept that the world can sometimes be a dangerous place, and have the tools to deal with that kind of danger.

Gutless coward? That's just a personal insult delivered because you can't give a rational argument. It doesn't merit a rebuttal.

[east texas lib]

16. I would agree that RKBA is indeed a virtue for progressives...

I personally believe that the survival imperative transcends political preference and therefore the RKBA is a right for all citizens with the individual being the lone arbiter of their choices with regard to RKBA. Just my two cents. I enjoy reading your posts, by the way. Keep it up!

[AlinPA]

25. I follow what you are saying, but, re:"The weaker can now do terrible, possibly fatal, damage to the

stronger with only the flick of a finger": There are many mentally ill who consider themselves weak in the face of a "stronger" society and believe they are being preyed upon then strike out with guns and end up killing people to get even for have been taken advantage of or treated unfairly or wronged by the strong. It's not a simple black and white situation.

[GreenStormCloud]

26. Nothing is ever 100%

If you seek absolute certainty in life, you will be disappointed. My OP holds as a general statement. Certainly we attempt to limit access to guns to those who are not mentally incompetent. But disarming me to avoid someone else being armed is not the way to go about it.

[DWC]

27. Dead on point

Thank you for this excellent post. The Colt revolver was called "The Equalizer" for this specific reason.

[GreenStormCloud]

29. Welcome to DU. Thanks. N/T

[rrneck]

28. K&R

We don't hear enough about disparity of force around here.

I had a helper once named Pete. Around the warehouse it was understood that Pete wouldn't beat on you till you had enough. He'd beat on you till he had enough.

It is unwise to minimize a beating or its effect on the life of someone who did nothing to receive it. The biggest cause of bankruptcy in this country is illness. A broken jaw can wreck a life. A simple "ass whipping" can leave somebody permanently disabled. And that's before the knives come out.