[Tortfeasor STi]

Originally Posted by 1loudsti

i agree with you, the choice to carry or not carry should be the choice of the individual but making all firearms illegal isnt going to solve anything only make it worse because then we are victims, as you said, of people/governments that think they are above the law

Can you honestly say, after looking at the modern intelligence and military technology that the government possess in the USA that an armed populace would accomplish anything? OOoohh you have a 45' hand gun. Thats not even going to pierce a flack jacket. The U.S. military destroyed Iraq in a matter of Months and the populace there was armed with assault riffles. Your little hand gun is going to be next to useless in an armed conflict with the government. Our best bet to defeat the U.S. government, if that was a goal the populace had, would be non violent demonstrations like Gandhi in India.

[boondocksaint]

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

Can you honestly say, after looking at the modern intelligence and military technology that the government possess in the USA that an armed populace would accomplish anything? OOoohh you have a 45' hand gun. Thats not even going to pierce a flack jacket. The U.S. military destroyed Iraq in a matter of Months and the populace there was armed with assault riffles. Your little hand gun is going to be next to useless in an armed conflict with the government. Our best bet to defeat the U.S. government, if that was a goal the populace had, would be non violent demonstrations like Gandhi in India.

I'm going to have to call you on this. Do you really think the majority of the military would go along with an oppression of the U.S. Population? It will never be citizens vs. the military here. We have citizen soldiers.

The argument against disarmament takes into account the inability to rise up and overthrow an oppressive government, which the military may not be able to do. If it was deployed elsewhere, for instance.

EDIT: at me sounding like a revolutionary. I will be keeping my firearm, however.

[couchflambeau]

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

Do we blame swords and the long bow for the crusades?

Well, if one would make the contention that concealed weapons lead to criminal activity then yes, I guess the same convoluted logic process could also blame the crusades on the tools used to implement war. Just as we could say that cars are pox on humanity for the death and suffering they cause. Nothing to do with lousy, inattentive drivers.

I'll defer back to my previous arguement, it's the idiot behind the trigger, not the gun that kills people. Blaming the gun is silly.... it's nothing more than an unthinking tool. Where's the truth of the blame? It's called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Which is something that psychology and sociology has seemed to have taught us doesn't exist. We're all just victims I guess....

Perhaps you're right.... and these tragedies were not avoidable... but if you were on the losing side wouldn't you rather have the capacity to go down fighting that just bow your head to the boltgun like some lowly cow at a Chicago stockyard?

Certainly there is an ethical debate. Perhaps some day when the human species evolves to the point that guns become unnecessary then we can just cash in our firearms, that being the case we'll probably do it enthusiastically. Unfortunately I don't expect this to happen within my lifetime... and I don't consider myself to be some kind of gun zealot, I'm just a realist.

[jaydow11]

Great comments/views from everyone!

[RuralSTI]

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

Can you honestly say, after looking at the modern intelligence and military technology that the government possess in the USA that an armed populace would accomplish anything? OOoohh you have a 45' hand gun. Thats not even going to pierce a flack jacket. The U.S. military destroyed Iraq in a matter of Months and the populace there was armed with assault riffles. Your little hand gun is going to be next to useless in an armed conflict with the government. Our best bet to defeat the U.S. government, if that was a goal the populace had, would be non violent demonstrations like Gandhi in India.

Lets not get into the military's inability to calm things in Iraq ( Not an anti-military comment so don't attack me for that) because I think your comment does not hold strong on that point.

It may just me be too, but I think your kinda missing the point of this thread by a country mile. Most, if not all, of the people here do not carry their pistol to fight off the Gov in the literal sense. They are fighting for their rights to their firearms. I know I do not carry because I worry that good old G.W will wake up one day decide that he does not like Italians and come after me. I worry about the guy who breaks into my home.

So...yeah I'm going to have to give you a -1pt for that one. Sorry, better luck next time

[jaydow11]

Originally Posted by RuralSTI

They are fighting for their rights to their firearms.

Being in Canada, I could care less if I didn't have a "right" to own a gun. But I think that's because we don't have the same second amendment as you. So our attitues towards the "right" to own a gun are different. Plus, we don't have as much of a problem as you guys do so I don't feel the Need to own a gun, let alone carry one.

I know 1 person who owns a hand gun. I know probably 3-4 people who own hunting rifles and that's it. I'm willing to bet that would be a very rare thing to say if I lived in the US?

[Tortfeasor STi]

Originally Posted by boondocksaint

I'm going to have to call you on this. Do you really think the majority of the military would go along with an oppression of the U.S. Population? It will never be citizens vs. the military here. We have citizen soldiers.

No I actually think its very unlikely for either the government to try to oppress us with military might or, if that happens, for the military to go along with it. We are not the Junta. The point I was making was a counter to the guy who was arguing for guns as a means to protect individual liberties. I was arguing that the government already has the tools to do this in the first place and our having guns is irrelevant.

[1loudsti]

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

No I actually think its very unlikely for either the government to try to oppress us with military might or, if that happens, for the military to go along with it. We are not the Junta. The point I was making was a counter to the guy who was arguing for guns as a means to protect individual liberties. I was arguing that the government already has the tools to do this in the first place and our having guns is irrelevant.

most people dont carry guns to protect themselves from the government, just the other idiots that carry illegally and have no respect for the law or other peoples property

[Tortfeasor STi]

Originally Posted by RuralSTI

Lets not get into the military's inability to calm things in Iraq ( Not an anti-military comment so don't attack me for that) because I think your comment does not hold strong on that point.

It holds a lot of water actually. We destroyed the infrastructure of that country in a matter of weeks. Where we have failed is in building a successful democratic nation. It turns out that while we are very good at destroying we are terrible at building. You think we would have learned our lesson in Nicaragua.

Originally Posted by RuralSTI

It may just me be too, but I think your kinda missing the point of this thread by a country mile. Most, if not all, of the people here do not carry their pistol to fight off the Gov in the literal sense. They are fighting for their rights to their firearms.

I am not missing the point. I was arguing against people owning guns as a means of protecting their rights. The whole purpose of my post was to show how silly the idea of using a hand gun to protect yourself from the government is. I realize that people are arguing for their right to own guns. But it makes no sense to talk about "rights" when this thread is a "no second amendment" zone courtesy of our attentive mod team wanting to keep things in this thread on topic. So if we are not talking about legal rights, then we have to talk about legitimate reasons for gun ownership. And here I will quote myself:

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

Also, since we are talking about concealed carry outside the auspecies of the constitution, then what exactly is the debate? Basically you are either for it or against it. Classic individual freedom vs. perceived societal best interest discussion. There is no definitive answer to the debate here. Frankly, it renders discussion pointless. To discuss gun ownership/control outside of a legal frame work leaves you with nothing but ethical and freedom issues neither of which can be resolved.

[RuralSTI]

Originally Posted by jaydow11

Being in Canada, I could care less if I didn't have a "right" to own a gun. But I think that's because we don't have the same second amendment as you. So our attitues towards the "right" to own a gun are different. Plus, we don't have as much of a problem as you guys do so I don't feel the Need to own a gun, let alone carry one.

I know 1 person who owns a hand gun. I know probably 3-4 people who own hunting rifles and that's it. I'm willing to bet that would be a very rare thing to say if I lived in the US?

Many people down here do not own, or really no people who do. It varies a lot depending on where you are, as I would imagin it is like in Canada. If your close to a city the number of people with firearms drops off as far as rifles and shotguns. Where as I live in the country so it is very common here to have mulitiple firearms. As an example I have five different hunting rifles, two hunting shotguns a few pistols. but thats just because I hunt. There where guys in my ROTC class that had never seens a pistol until their first time on the range. so it varies.

[RuralSTI]

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

I am not missing the point. I was arguing against people owning guns as a means of protecting their rights. The whole purpose of my post was to show how silly the idea of using a hand gun to protect yourself from the government is. I realize that people are arguing for their right to own guns. But it makes no sense to talk about "rights" when this thread is a "no second amendment" zone courtesy of our attentive mod team wanting to keep things in this thread on topic. So if we are not talking about legal rights, then we have to talk about legitimate reasons for gun ownership. And here I will quote myself:

I see the comment you where responding to, but I think that he was trying to say that if you let the government restrict one right, then you could be opening the door to let them restrict other rights. You are right though in that this topic is not what this thread is ment to be for. So to that end, I'm done

[nice-rice]

I'm all for conceal carry...

I have my c.w.p. and carry everyday. I own numerous guns which I shoot often and trust my life to use should someone try hostile force against me. Even though I dont live in a bad area, all over Jacksonville the murder/crime/home invasion rates have been on the rise lately and I do feel much safer carry my gun.

[gohrsepwr]

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

It holds a lot of water actually. We destroyed the infrastructure of that country in a matter of weeks. Where we have failed is in building a successful democratic nation. It turns out that while we are very good at destroying we are terrible at building. You think we would have learned our lesson in Nicaragua.:

i think your mistaken here, weve done a very good job in rebuilding iraq, we are not at war with iraq, we are helping iraq with the terrorist that keep comming in and attacking. when iraq becomes strong enough to defend themselves we will be gone. and talk about rebuilding what about japan,germany, south korea,france...

[1loudsti]

Originally Posted by gohrsepwr

i think your mistaken here, weve done a very good job in rebuilding iraq, we are not at war with iraq, we are helping iraq with the terrorist that keep comming in and attacking. when iraq becomes strong enough to defend themselves we will be gone. and talk about rebuilding what about japan,germany, south korea,france...

i agree with you, if the terrorists would just stop the rebuilding would be going very well, but everytime we make headway someone else comes in and blows themselves up and we have to start over

[Bownse]

Originally Posted by Tortfeasor STi

The whole purpose of my post was to show how silly the idea of using a hand gun to protect yourself from the government is.

actually, it's about the business of acquisition. the pistol is used to get a rifle. the rifle is used to get a machine gun. the machine gun is used to get the rpg, the rpg is used to get the...

all the while the citizen soldiers are re-thinking why they would want to oppress their neighbor and your other neighbors are also going about the business of acquisition (and so on).