4 ms·

Respectfully, what right do you have to determine my needs? From a more practical perspective, what are you going to do about it? Are you proposing to take arm

Respectfully, what right do you have to determine my needs? From a more practical perspective, what are you going to do about it? Are you proposing to take arms from the American people by force? How many deaths are acceptable to make that happen? To be clear, I don't mean the above as a threat or anything of the sort. I'm merely pointing out the certain result of a policy of disarmament, and the hypocrisy of using force to render a population defenseless.

millzlane 11y ago
Not to mention that self defense is a natural negative right. Gun ownership falls in the same category. My negative right to defend myself with a gun, from someone wishing to do me egregious or fatal harm doesn't affect anyone else. There are negative rights and positive rights. We all could learn a little more about them. See 2.1.8 @ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/#2.1 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/#2.1
pjc50 11y ago
It would never be an overnight event, it would take a generation of ratcheting restrictions. In that sense the "slippery slope" pro-gun people are right; the end point of incremental measures has to be a country with far fewer guns. But it looks just as feasible from an ideological point of view as ending white supremacism in the US.
- oconnore 11y ago
  Ugh, the "ratcheting restrictions" tactic is why we can't have ANY compromise on gun laws. The NRA is not stupid.
salgernon 11y ago
> Are you proposing to take arms from the American people by force To the extent that libertarians believe that taxes are extracted by force (I usually see this written as "violence") then yes. If each gun carried a tax sufficient to mitigate it's societal cost, and if each cartridge were an order of magnitude more expensive, we would be done with this issue in 100 years. It will take a long time, but it won't get done if we don't start. (Preventively - yes, you can 3D print yourself a handgun, and likely blow your hand off, and reload your own bullets. At that point your personal time doing that work is a proxy for the taxes you would have payed.)
- mizchief2 11y ago
  Which is exactly why the gun community is unwilling to enact ANY type of new gun restrictions no matter how "common sense" they are. People on the left constantly boast about how they want to take all of the guns away and will use a baby-step approach to do so. While Obama uses crocodile tears after a tragedy and tries to convince the people that "nobody wants to take your guns away"

millzlane 11y ago

Not to mention that self defense is a natural negative right. Gun ownership falls in the same category. My negative right to defend myself with a gun, from someone wishing to do me egregious or fatal harm doesn't affect anyone else. There are negative rights and positive rights. We all could learn a little more about them. See 2.1.8 @ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/#2.1 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/#2.1

pjc50 11y ago

It would never be an overnight event, it would take a generation of ratcheting restrictions. In that sense the "slippery slope" pro-gun people are right; the end point of incremental measures has to be a country with far fewer guns. But it looks just as feasible from an ideological point of view as ending white supremacism in the US.

oconnore 11y ago
Ugh, the "ratcheting restrictions" tactic is why we can't have ANY compromise on gun laws. The NRA is not stupid.

salgernon 11y ago

> Are you proposing to take arms from the American people by force To the extent that libertarians believe that taxes are extracted by force (I usually see this written as "violence") then yes. If each gun carried a tax sufficient to mitigate it's societal cost, and if each cartridge were an order of magnitude more expensive, we would be done with this issue in 100 years. It will take a long time, but it won't get done if we don't start. (Preventively - yes, you can 3D print yourself a handgun, and likely blow your hand off, and reload your own bullets. At that point your personal time doing that work is a proxy for the taxes you would have payed.)

mizchief2 11y ago
Which is exactly why the gun community is unwilling to enact ANY type of new gun restrictions no matter how "common sense" they are. People on the left constantly boast about how they want to take all of the guns away and will use a baby-step approach to do so. While Obama uses crocodile tears after a tragedy and tries to convince the people that "nobody wants to take your guns away"