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The biggest puzzle to me is how a lot of Americans I talk to that equate 2A with 'freedom'. I have seriously had conversations with some people who believe tha

The biggest puzzle to me is how a lot of Americans I talk to that equate 2A with 'freedom'. I have seriously had conversations with some people who believe that we are _less_ free here in Australia that them in the US because we do not have the right to bear arms. I think that definition of 'freedom' has just become so conflated or twisted of late that it really needs to be decoupled from the overall culture and re-examined. Today I read tweets from pundits and politicians advocating for armed guards to be at every 'peaceful gathering' in order to ensure safety in the US. I grew up in an authoritarian S/E Asian country where there were policemen or soldiers on literally every street corner with an automatic weapon slung around their front and with one hand close to the trigger. This is the very antithesis of 'freedom' to me.

jlawson 7y ago
Under what definition of freedom does having less right to defend yourself make you more free? I understand how you might see the tradeoff as worth it - some safety purchased at a cost of freedom. But expanding the list of things that you're not allowed to do doesn't seem like it could possibly be interpreted as expanding freedom. Same argument for drug or alcohol prohibition, religious restrictions, etc.
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  You are correct, you'd definitely lose the freedom to own a gun that fires 10 rounds a second, to defend your home. In Australia you'd just have to make do with the freedom to own a bolt-action. On the other hand, A whole bunch of civilians in malls would gain the freedom to live. Freedom would expand.
  - jlawson 7y ago
    Three massive pieces of wrongness in this post. First, people in America can't own guns that fire '10 rounds a second' without a class 3 firearms license, which is very rare. Such guns are basically never used in mass shootings. Second, depending on who you need to defend your home from, you may want such a gun. For example, if government or government sanctioned groups are a threat. An example of this is the killings of white farmers in South Africa. Is not just about burglars, it's about gas chambers and political threats. Always has been. Finally, redefining safety as freedom is a truly absurd abuse of language which wipes out a critical distinction that has been heavily discussed for a long time. If this is what it takes for you to make your point make sense, your point doesn't make sense. Just admit it. You want more safety. You're willing to give up freedom (or rather, sacrifice the freedom of others) to get it. No need to play ridiculous semantic games to pretend there are no tradeoffs here.
    - tomlockwood 7y ago
      Again, you are very correct. There's always tradeoffs where freedom is concerned. For example, you may be free to bring a gun into your home for defence, but the tradeoff is that you and your family are 3x freer to die from gunshot wounds as a result. Also very cool and correct of you to support the restriction of high fire rate firearms, like the assault rifles used in all of the mass shootings over the last decade. You're correct to say safety isn't freedom. However, being alive definitely contributes to freedom. Gun safety and being alive are correlated :) Remember, trigger discipline! America is definitely an outlier in terms of gun deaths. I don't know much about the situation in South Africa, but it's very interesting you'd consider the death of some white farmers in Africa as pertinent, when the vast majority of political violence in America in the last decade has been perpetrated by white men. Also interesting that you'd consider government sanctioned groups as a threat. Do you feel like if the brave men and women of the American military were ordered to take your guns, they'd do so? Why do you think so little of our troops?
      - jlawson 7y ago
        "you may be free to bring a gun into your home for defence, but the tradeoff is that you and your family are 3x freer to die from gunshot wounds as a result." Do I need to say this? Correlation does not equal causation. "restriction of high fire rate firearms, like the assault rifles used in all of the mass shootings over the last decade" I never stated any such support, and that is not the definition of an assault rifle, it's the definition of an automatic weapon. "it's very interesting you'd consider the death of some white farmers in Africa as pertinent, when the vast majority of political violence in America in the last decade has been perpetrated by white men." I wasn't talking about 'gun violence', I was talking about political violence; those African killers are not necessarily using guns. You didn't understand me, clearly, but nice to immediately slip in a racism accusation there. Of course it's perpetrated by whites; they're almost 80% of the population. "Do you feel like if the brave men and women of the American military were ordered to take your guns, they'd do so?" The rest of what you're saying seems to be some kind of rhetorical trick; speak plainly if you have a point to make. I don't have any guns and I never said I was American, but I appreciate the stereotyping and assumptions. Clearly, imagining me as a truck-driving beer-swilling hillbilly, or whatever racist steretotype you prefer, makes it easier to not think about what I'm saying, because you clearly didn't engage with any of it.
- cyberferret 7y ago
  We absolutely have the right to defend ourselves here in Australia. With guns even, no less. I used to own several (bolt action, 5 shot internal magazine capacity) rifles because I used to competition shoot. I sold them off years ago because I stopped competing and just didn't need them lying around the house, rusting. There you go - freedom to own guns or not. I could probably also get a handgun if I wanted, but I would need to renew my licence and pass strenuous background checks and prove to the police that I store it safely, AND I have to be a continual member of a gun club and shoot regularly with others so they can assess my gun handling skills (and I guess also my mental state) on a regular basis. What I absolutely CANNOT do is to go and buy a semi automatic gun with a magazine capacity to slaughter an entire school room full of kids without having to reload. What the heck would _any_ civilian in a peaceful country want/need such a weapon? On the flipside, it also means I am free to enjoy the fact that my kids can go to school every day with a less than .001% chance that some maniac will walk into their classroom and mow them down. To close off this post, and to end that illusion of "I can protect my family with a gun" hero storyline - About 3 years ago we had someone break into our house in the middle of the night. I was woken up by the sound of my son yelling at someone to get the fk out of his room so I jumped out of bed and grabbed a small wooden baton that I keep under our bed. When I threw open our bedroom door, I saw a shadowy figure run past it in the dark corridor. To this day, I am glad I grabbed the baton instead of an (imagined, non existent) loaded gun, because my first instinct was let fly at the fleeing figure, only to realise a few seconds later that it was my own son, giving chase to the intruder who was fleeing ahead of him. I could have killed my own son if I had a gun in my hand in that split second of rage and confusion. Later, we found out that the police nabbed the intruder, who turned out to be a 15 year old boy that lived a couple of streets away. Had I shot HIM, I would have had to live with the thought that I had killed someone's child. I cannot do that. I prefer to live with the _freedom_ of not having the guilt of taking someone else's life on my conscience.
  - jlawson 7y ago
    You talked a lot about why you think guns are not necessary in a peaceful society. Of course, this isn't why people think that citizens should be allowed to have them. The reason is to resist organized violence, which can arise over time or without warning. It's not just about stopping burglars. However the more critical problem with what you wrote is that it doesn't actually attempt to disprove anything I said. You simply reiterated a bunch of arguments against gun ownership. You didn't actually say why adding to the list of things you're not allowed to do here makes you more free. And I think that's because it's definitionally impossible to demonstrate. Would you say that alcohol prohibition 'expands freedom' because it reduces drunk driving deaths? The definition of freedom is being allowed to do things. It doesn't mean being allowed to do only good things, or things which are good in some particular person's opinion. It means I can do something that you would rather I did not do. That's freedom. Freedom to do what others want you to do is not freedom.
MockObject 7y ago
> I have seriously had conversations with some people who believe that we are _less_ free here in Australia that them in the US because we do not have the right to bear arms. You seem to be conflating "freedom" with "safety". Often they're correlated, but in this case they conflict.

jlawson 7y ago

Under what definition of freedom does having less right to defend yourself make you more free? I understand how you might see the tradeoff as worth it - some safety purchased at a cost of freedom. But expanding the list of things that you're not allowed to do doesn't seem like it could possibly be interpreted as expanding freedom. Same argument for drug or alcohol prohibition, religious restrictions, etc.

tomlockwood 7y ago
You are correct, you'd definitely lose the freedom to own a gun that fires 10 rounds a second, to defend your home. In Australia you'd just have to make do with the freedom to own a bolt-action. On the other hand, A whole bunch of civilians in malls would gain the freedom to live. Freedom would expand.
- jlawson 7y ago
  Three massive pieces of wrongness in this post. First, people in America can't own guns that fire '10 rounds a second' without a class 3 firearms license, which is very rare. Such guns are basically never used in mass shootings. Second, depending on who you need to defend your home from, you may want such a gun. For example, if government or government sanctioned groups are a threat. An example of this is the killings of white farmers in South Africa. Is not just about burglars, it's about gas chambers and political threats. Always has been. Finally, redefining safety as freedom is a truly absurd abuse of language which wipes out a critical distinction that has been heavily discussed for a long time. If this is what it takes for you to make your point make sense, your point doesn't make sense. Just admit it. You want more safety. You're willing to give up freedom (or rather, sacrifice the freedom of others) to get it. No need to play ridiculous semantic games to pretend there are no tradeoffs here.
  - tomlockwood 7y ago
    Again, you are very correct. There's always tradeoffs where freedom is concerned. For example, you may be free to bring a gun into your home for defence, but the tradeoff is that you and your family are 3x freer to die from gunshot wounds as a result. Also very cool and correct of you to support the restriction of high fire rate firearms, like the assault rifles used in all of the mass shootings over the last decade. You're correct to say safety isn't freedom. However, being alive definitely contributes to freedom. Gun safety and being alive are correlated :) Remember, trigger discipline! America is definitely an outlier in terms of gun deaths. I don't know much about the situation in South Africa, but it's very interesting you'd consider the death of some white farmers in Africa as pertinent, when the vast majority of political violence in America in the last decade has been perpetrated by white men. Also interesting that you'd consider government sanctioned groups as a threat. Do you feel like if the brave men and women of the American military were ordered to take your guns, they'd do so? Why do you think so little of our troops?
    - jlawson 7y ago
      "you may be free to bring a gun into your home for defence, but the tradeoff is that you and your family are 3x freer to die from gunshot wounds as a result." Do I need to say this? Correlation does not equal causation. "restriction of high fire rate firearms, like the assault rifles used in all of the mass shootings over the last decade" I never stated any such support, and that is not the definition of an assault rifle, it's the definition of an automatic weapon. "it's very interesting you'd consider the death of some white farmers in Africa as pertinent, when the vast majority of political violence in America in the last decade has been perpetrated by white men." I wasn't talking about 'gun violence', I was talking about political violence; those African killers are not necessarily using guns. You didn't understand me, clearly, but nice to immediately slip in a racism accusation there. Of course it's perpetrated by whites; they're almost 80% of the population. "Do you feel like if the brave men and women of the American military were ordered to take your guns, they'd do so?" The rest of what you're saying seems to be some kind of rhetorical trick; speak plainly if you have a point to make. I don't have any guns and I never said I was American, but I appreciate the stereotyping and assumptions. Clearly, imagining me as a truck-driving beer-swilling hillbilly, or whatever racist steretotype you prefer, makes it easier to not think about what I'm saying, because you clearly didn't engage with any of it.
cyberferret 7y ago
We absolutely have the right to defend ourselves here in Australia. With guns even, no less. I used to own several (bolt action, 5 shot internal magazine capacity) rifles because I used to competition shoot. I sold them off years ago because I stopped competing and just didn't need them lying around the house, rusting. There you go - freedom to own guns or not. I could probably also get a handgun if I wanted, but I would need to renew my licence and pass strenuous background checks and prove to the police that I store it safely, AND I have to be a continual member of a gun club and shoot regularly with others so they can assess my gun handling skills (and I guess also my mental state) on a regular basis. What I absolutely CANNOT do is to go and buy a semi automatic gun with a magazine capacity to slaughter an entire school room full of kids without having to reload. What the heck would _any_ civilian in a peaceful country want/need such a weapon? On the flipside, it also means I am free to enjoy the fact that my kids can go to school every day with a less than .001% chance that some maniac will walk into their classroom and mow them down. To close off this post, and to end that illusion of "I can protect my family with a gun" hero storyline - About 3 years ago we had someone break into our house in the middle of the night. I was woken up by the sound of my son yelling at someone to get the fk out of his room so I jumped out of bed and grabbed a small wooden baton that I keep under our bed. When I threw open our bedroom door, I saw a shadowy figure run past it in the dark corridor. To this day, I am glad I grabbed the baton instead of an (imagined, non existent) loaded gun, because my first instinct was let fly at the fleeing figure, only to realise a few seconds later that it was my own son, giving chase to the intruder who was fleeing ahead of him. I could have killed my own son if I had a gun in my hand in that split second of rage and confusion. Later, we found out that the police nabbed the intruder, who turned out to be a 15 year old boy that lived a couple of streets away. Had I shot HIM, I would have had to live with the thought that I had killed someone's child. I cannot do that. I prefer to live with the _freedom_ of not having the guilt of taking someone else's life on my conscience.
- jlawson 7y ago
  You talked a lot about why you think guns are not necessary in a peaceful society. Of course, this isn't why people think that citizens should be allowed to have them. The reason is to resist organized violence, which can arise over time or without warning. It's not just about stopping burglars. However the more critical problem with what you wrote is that it doesn't actually attempt to disprove anything I said. You simply reiterated a bunch of arguments against gun ownership. You didn't actually say why adding to the list of things you're not allowed to do here makes you more free. And I think that's because it's definitionally impossible to demonstrate. Would you say that alcohol prohibition 'expands freedom' because it reduces drunk driving deaths? The definition of freedom is being allowed to do things. It doesn't mean being allowed to do only good things, or things which are good in some particular person's opinion. It means I can do something that you would rather I did not do. That's freedom. Freedom to do what others want you to do is not freedom.

MockObject 7y ago

> I have seriously had conversations with some people who believe that we are _less_ free here in Australia that them in the US because we do not have the right to bear arms. You seem to be conflating "freedom" with "safety". Often they're correlated, but in this case they conflict.