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> I absolutely support gun rights What are some of the supporting reasons for gun rights? Last I heard from a heated coversation is that having a gun has no m

> I absolutely support gun rights What are some of the supporting reasons for gun rights? Last I heard from a heated coversation is that having a gun has no meaningful opposition to the government in this day and age. Good luck opposing the US military. Many nations around the world work well without it. What would happen if US bans all forms of guns and ammunitions and abolishes the 2nd amendment?

D13Fd 6y ago
I think it's foundational to the character of our nation. The United States has always been a free country and the right to bear arms is one of our core freedoms, alongside the first amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free exercise of religion. I would never want to see any of those rights taken away. The societal costs of gun violence are just a price we pay for that freedom, and I think it's worth it. Edit: To answer the question about what happens if the U.S. were to ban guns, I'd say that we would lose one of the core freedoms that made us great.
- skissane 6y ago
  Many Americans say they have more freedom than Australians, because (among other reasons) there are a lot more hoops to jump through in order to legally buy a gun in Australia than in the US (and the range of weapons you are legally allowed to buy having jumped through those steps are narrower, and the regulations around storage/carry/etc are more restrictive.) On the other hand, in the US the government (federally and in 28 states) has the right to kill you if it can get 12 jurors to say you've done something so bad you deserve to die. So, it seems Australians may not have the same right to own guns, but they have a greater right to life. Why count one right and ignore the other?
  - D13Fd 6y ago
    Capital punishment is not an issue of freedom, it's an issue of justice - another core American value. I don’t think capital punishment is the only way to have justice, but I see it as a different concern than freedom.
    - skissane 6y ago
      I think the freedom to live is the most fundamental freedom of all – every other freedom is dependent on the freedom to live, because to enjoy any other freedom you first have to be alive. If capital punishment is justice, why isn't corporal punishment equally so? If justice can be served by killing a person, why can it not also be served by flogging them or cutting off their hand? Do Iran and Saudi Arabia, in that regard, therefore have more justice than America?
    - pjc50 6y ago
      Capital punishment is an issue of injustice, given how many people have been executed on questionable evidence and of the racial disparity in execution rates.
- andor 6y ago
  "The United States has always been a free country" (for white people)
- jgwil2 6y ago
  > To answer the question about what happens if the U.S. were to ban guns, I'd say that we would lose one of the core freedoms that made us great. And how exactly has this "core freedom" made us great? All you've talked about in this thread is this abstract notion of freedom and how it's an unqualified good. But obviously people cannot have complete freedom; that's why we live in a society of laws. So please make an argument to why this specific freedom is so important to the flourishing of the human condition.
  - syshum 6y ago
    >>that's why we live in a society of laws. That is not why we have a society of laws " The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all. " -- Frédéric Bastiat The law was not founded to curb liberties, or to control populations, the law was founded to protect liberties and the allow people to be free "But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. "
    - jgwil2 6y ago
      Call it what you like, but people can't do whatever they want, so it is obvious that freedom is not unlimited.
      - syshum 6y ago
        That really depends on how you define freedom, Do you take a John Locke position of Natural Rights, or do you believe governments are the source of rights. "freedom is not unlimited" is a clear reductio ad absurdum fallacy brought in ways like "well you can not murder anyone you like so clearly your freedom is limited" and it is no way refuting on my argument about Self Defense. I can not proceed further though until I have an understating of what you define as freedom. I am coming from a Locke / Libertarian understanding of liberty. Which at its core is based in the Principle of Self Ownership and the Philosophy of Liberty [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ
hemloc_io 6y ago
The US military has not done particularly well in Iraq/Afghanistan and esp Vietnam. There are a bunch of reasons personally. Protecting yourself + your property. Outside of a city, good luck getting the police to come to your house. Where I used to live they would take at least 20 minutes and it wasn't particularly rural. If you're in actual middle of nowhere I'm sure it's even worse. Hunting + fun. Freedom, I'd say our gun culture is engrained in individualism and property rights. Seems like a celebration of that. (Unlike somewhere like Switzerland where it might come for a sense of collectivism) And obviously to scare the govt into behaving. American gun culture is definitely a complicated beast though! If you're interested generally ppl are friendly and helpful, regardless of stereotypes.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > And obviously to scare the govt into behaving. Everyone still deploying this argument like people didn't storm the Capitol on the 6th. In that incident, the insurrectionists didn't have guns but instead beat a cop to death with a fire extinguisher. This line of reasoning is why the Capitol is full of national guard sleeping on the floor at the moment, and the national security apparatus is slowly trying to figure out how to do an inauguration without it becoming a mass shooting.
  - hemloc_io 6y ago
    It was mostly tounge in cheek. That's a bad comparison. The people storming the capitol didn't have any real reason to. Look at the actions of John Brown during the 1800s for a mostly positive example! The roots of the modern NRA were actually founded by Black Panthers attempting to defend their communities. If the insurrectionists used a fire extinguisher it probably doesn't matter if they had guns or not, since you can create mayham in other ways esp en masse. Maybe American gun culture isn't to blame for our current crisis, if guns weren't involved? I'd think their mass delusion would be a bigger issue. > the national security apparatuss is slowly trying to figureee out how to do an inaugurationn without it becomingg a mass shooting. You can't legally carry a gun into DC in the first place, I highly doubt even before now that they didn't screen for them at the inauguration.
syshum 6y ago
Self Defense is a core human right, I do not consent nor should anyone consent to have that right outsourced to the "police" or any other government body. When seconds counts the police are minutes away. Guns are a tool for self defense, as such it is my human right to own one for my own protection. “The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Thomas Jefferson, “This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” – St. George Tucker, Finally for me it comes down to a simple truism, if the government can not trust me with a gun for my own defense, I sure as hell can not trust them with a gun to "defend" me with. So if the government wants disarm the population, it should also disarm itself, for how can a government be "For the people by the people" if the people in government do not have to follow the same laws as everyone else So if all government agents are barred from owning guns, then I will also give up mine.

D13Fd 6y ago

I think it's foundational to the character of our nation. The United States has always been a free country and the right to bear arms is one of our core freedoms, alongside the first amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free exercise of religion. I would never want to see any of those rights taken away. The societal costs of gun violence are just a price we pay for that freedom, and I think it's worth it. Edit: To answer the question about what happens if the U.S. were to ban guns, I'd say that we would lose one of the core freedoms that made us great.

skissane 6y ago
Many Americans say they have more freedom than Australians, because (among other reasons) there are a lot more hoops to jump through in order to legally buy a gun in Australia than in the US (and the range of weapons you are legally allowed to buy having jumped through those steps are narrower, and the regulations around storage/carry/etc are more restrictive.) On the other hand, in the US the government (federally and in 28 states) has the right to kill you if it can get 12 jurors to say you've done something so bad you deserve to die. So, it seems Australians may not have the same right to own guns, but they have a greater right to life. Why count one right and ignore the other?
- D13Fd 6y ago
  Capital punishment is not an issue of freedom, it's an issue of justice - another core American value. I don’t think capital punishment is the only way to have justice, but I see it as a different concern than freedom.
  - skissane 6y ago
    I think the freedom to live is the most fundamental freedom of all – every other freedom is dependent on the freedom to live, because to enjoy any other freedom you first have to be alive. If capital punishment is justice, why isn't corporal punishment equally so? If justice can be served by killing a person, why can it not also be served by flogging them or cutting off their hand? Do Iran and Saudi Arabia, in that regard, therefore have more justice than America?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Capital punishment is an issue of injustice, given how many people have been executed on questionable evidence and of the racial disparity in execution rates.
andor 6y ago
"The United States has always been a free country" (for white people)
jgwil2 6y ago
> To answer the question about what happens if the U.S. were to ban guns, I'd say that we would lose one of the core freedoms that made us great. And how exactly has this "core freedom" made us great? All you've talked about in this thread is this abstract notion of freedom and how it's an unqualified good. But obviously people cannot have complete freedom; that's why we live in a society of laws. So please make an argument to why this specific freedom is so important to the flourishing of the human condition.
- syshum 6y ago
  >>that's why we live in a society of laws. That is not why we have a society of laws " The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all. " -- Frédéric Bastiat The law was not founded to curb liberties, or to control populations, the law was founded to protect liberties and the allow people to be free "But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. "
  - jgwil2 6y ago
    Call it what you like, but people can't do whatever they want, so it is obvious that freedom is not unlimited.
    - syshum 6y ago
      That really depends on how you define freedom, Do you take a John Locke position of Natural Rights, or do you believe governments are the source of rights. "freedom is not unlimited" is a clear reductio ad absurdum fallacy brought in ways like "well you can not murder anyone you like so clearly your freedom is limited" and it is no way refuting on my argument about Self Defense. I can not proceed further though until I have an understating of what you define as freedom. I am coming from a Locke / Libertarian understanding of liberty. Which at its core is based in the Principle of Self Ownership and the Philosophy of Liberty [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ

hemloc_io 6y ago

The US military has not done particularly well in Iraq/Afghanistan and esp Vietnam. There are a bunch of reasons personally. Protecting yourself + your property. Outside of a city, good luck getting the police to come to your house. Where I used to live they would take at least 20 minutes and it wasn't particularly rural. If you're in actual middle of nowhere I'm sure it's even worse. Hunting + fun. Freedom, I'd say our gun culture is engrained in individualism and property rights. Seems like a celebration of that. (Unlike somewhere like Switzerland where it might come for a sense of collectivism) And obviously to scare the govt into behaving. American gun culture is definitely a complicated beast though! If you're interested generally ppl are friendly and helpful, regardless of stereotypes.

pjc50 6y ago
> And obviously to scare the govt into behaving. Everyone still deploying this argument like people didn't storm the Capitol on the 6th. In that incident, the insurrectionists didn't have guns but instead beat a cop to death with a fire extinguisher. This line of reasoning is why the Capitol is full of national guard sleeping on the floor at the moment, and the national security apparatus is slowly trying to figure out how to do an inauguration without it becoming a mass shooting.
- hemloc_io 6y ago
  It was mostly tounge in cheek. That's a bad comparison. The people storming the capitol didn't have any real reason to. Look at the actions of John Brown during the 1800s for a mostly positive example! The roots of the modern NRA were actually founded by Black Panthers attempting to defend their communities. If the insurrectionists used a fire extinguisher it probably doesn't matter if they had guns or not, since you can create mayham in other ways esp en masse. Maybe American gun culture isn't to blame for our current crisis, if guns weren't involved? I'd think their mass delusion would be a bigger issue. > the national security apparatuss is slowly trying to figureee out how to do an inaugurationn without it becomingg a mass shooting. You can't legally carry a gun into DC in the first place, I highly doubt even before now that they didn't screen for them at the inauguration.

syshum 6y ago

Self Defense is a core human right, I do not consent nor should anyone consent to have that right outsourced to the "police" or any other government body. When seconds counts the police are minutes away. Guns are a tool for self defense, as such it is my human right to own one for my own protection. “The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Thomas Jefferson, “This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.” – St. George Tucker, Finally for me it comes down to a simple truism, if the government can not trust me with a gun for my own defense, I sure as hell can not trust them with a gun to "defend" me with. So if the government wants disarm the population, it should also disarm itself, for how can a government be "For the people by the people" if the people in government do not have to follow the same laws as everyone else So if all government agents are barred from owning guns, then I will also give up mine.