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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 capa

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.
- cyberferret 7y ago
  At what point do you draw the line though? If your intent with the second amendment is to, as it says, stop a potentially tyrannical government, then do you also have the freedom to buy hand grenades? How about shoulder mounted surface to air missiles to stop those pesky government F-16s? Some drones with Hellfire rounds? An M1-Abrahams to drive down to the corner store in case an uprising should start when you are out getting the milk? Are your neighbours free to mine the road outside your house in case insurgents should drive up some day? How about them buying some uranium and building a small detonator in their garage? Or perhaps brewing some toxic cocktail of poison gas in the local primary school science lab? Any of the above can be classed as a weapon to deter others, never mind the unintended consequence of accidental (or deliberate) discharging of any of them killing multiple innocent people. If you cannot purchase any of the above at a local dealership, then are you really free, when your government can outgun you at any point in time? I consider myself 'free' when I take steps to minimise the infinitesimally small probability that something bad might happen, and I know that the steps I take will not result in an even worse 'bad thing' happening. I got rid of my guns when we had kids. The very very tiny chance that I would need to use a gun against an intruder was outweighed by the even larger chance that one of my kids may have found my rifles and thought of them as play toys. Or the even larger chance that someone could burgle our house when we were not there and take them. I was free to choose what I wanted to do, and I still do not feel any less protected or safe in my own home, or while walking down the street, or when sending my kids to school, or when visiting a bar or attending a concert... or doing pretty much anything that a 'free' American is actually dead scared to do in their own country today.
  - jandrewrogers 7y ago
    As a technical point of fact, Americans can buy tanks, missiles, hand grenades, and most any other conventional weapon if they wish, there is no prohibition under Federal law and an existing process for doing so. In practice, it is a hassle and weapons are extremely expensive so only a handful of wealthy collectors ever dabble in it.
  - jlawson 7y ago
    Discussion about heavier weapons is interesting and worthwhile; there is a line there. But we're not talking about that, we're talking about guns right now. If the line of policy ever gets past guns we can all have a debate about hand grenades and RPGs. Howver, again, you are slipping sideways off the topic we're discussing. You're discussing what good policy is towards weapons. That's not what we're debating. This thread is about what it means to be free. If you could buy an RPG launcher, you would undoubtedly be more free than if you could not. This is by definition. It doens't mean you'd be safer, or better, or that this is good policy. It just means you'd be more free. "I consider myself 'free' when I take steps to minimise the infinitesimally small probability that something bad might happen, and I know that the steps I take will not result in an even worse 'bad thing' happening." This definition matches the word 'safe', not the word 'free'. (If you disagree, I wonder what your definition of 'safe' would be that differs from this?)

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.

cyberferret 7y ago
At what point do you draw the line though? If your intent with the second amendment is to, as it says, stop a potentially tyrannical government, then do you also have the freedom to buy hand grenades? How about shoulder mounted surface to air missiles to stop those pesky government F-16s? Some drones with Hellfire rounds? An M1-Abrahams to drive down to the corner store in case an uprising should start when you are out getting the milk? Are your neighbours free to mine the road outside your house in case insurgents should drive up some day? How about them buying some uranium and building a small detonator in their garage? Or perhaps brewing some toxic cocktail of poison gas in the local primary school science lab? Any of the above can be classed as a weapon to deter others, never mind the unintended consequence of accidental (or deliberate) discharging of any of them killing multiple innocent people. If you cannot purchase any of the above at a local dealership, then are you really free, when your government can outgun you at any point in time? I consider myself 'free' when I take steps to minimise the infinitesimally small probability that something bad might happen, and I know that the steps I take will not result in an even worse 'bad thing' happening. I got rid of my guns when we had kids. The very very tiny chance that I would need to use a gun against an intruder was outweighed by the even larger chance that one of my kids may have found my rifles and thought of them as play toys. Or the even larger chance that someone could burgle our house when we were not there and take them. I was free to choose what I wanted to do, and I still do not feel any less protected or safe in my own home, or while walking down the street, or when sending my kids to school, or when visiting a bar or attending a concert... or doing pretty much anything that a 'free' American is actually dead scared to do in their own country today.
- jandrewrogers 7y ago
  As a technical point of fact, Americans can buy tanks, missiles, hand grenades, and most any other conventional weapon if they wish, there is no prohibition under Federal law and an existing process for doing so. In practice, it is a hassle and weapons are extremely expensive so only a handful of wealthy collectors ever dabble in it.
- jlawson 7y ago
  Discussion about heavier weapons is interesting and worthwhile; there is a line there. But we're not talking about that, we're talking about guns right now. If the line of policy ever gets past guns we can all have a debate about hand grenades and RPGs. Howver, again, you are slipping sideways off the topic we're discussing. You're discussing what good policy is towards weapons. That's not what we're debating. This thread is about what it means to be free. If you could buy an RPG launcher, you would undoubtedly be more free than if you could not. This is by definition. It doens't mean you'd be safer, or better, or that this is good policy. It just means you'd be more free. "I consider myself 'free' when I take steps to minimise the infinitesimally small probability that something bad might happen, and I know that the steps I take will not result in an even worse 'bad thing' happening." This definition matches the word 'safe', not the word 'free'. (If you disagree, I wonder what your definition of 'safe' would be that differs from this?)