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Since this is a topic that will surely be contentious, I’ll offer a change of mind perspective. For many years, I was a staunch advocate for gun rights—more spe
by eyelidlessness 3y ago
Since this is a topic that will surely be contentious, I’ll offer a change of mind perspective. For many years, I was a staunch advocate for gun rights—more specifically, for the principle that the state shouldn’t have a monopoly on violence or the tools thereof. My principles are largely unchanged, but my view on guns is very different now, because:
1. I allowed myself, through honest reflection, to be persuaded by clear evidence of harm reduction associated with limiting access to guns. Any theoretical objection I had to that evidence was motivated by bias, however rooted in principle.
2. On similar reflection, I accepted the fact that such principle has little practical impact in the face of a modern, highly organized functioning state. Even the most heavily armed populace stands no chance at out-gunning its governing state, no matter how unjust its governance, barring other failure modes of that state which would be just as applicable regardless of how well armed the populace is.
3. Observing that my supposed fellow advocates for gun rights, by and large, are far less principled on the matter… and far more likely to defend—up to and including their own armed violence—such state injustice. These gun rights in practice are effectively a tool of oppression, rather than a bulwark against it.
- shapenamer 3y ago[dead]
- tivert 3y agoAnd there's tons of evidence to support your point #2: the blossoming liberal democracy currently in Afghanistan that was created by post-9/11 US military force, the crushing of the pro-democracy rebellion in Myanmar by the military junta, etc. And I have no idea how a Second Amendment advocate could imagine they could fight and win against a nuke-wielding government, they'd literally get vaporized by an ICBM before they could fire a shot.
- xscott 3y agoI'm not accusing you in particular, but a lot of people will say that a "second amendment advocate" couldn't hope to fight against the government out one side of their mouth, and then say that the January 6th nonsense was a legitimate threat to the government out of the other side... They can't both be true.
- jakogut 3y agoSort of like "an AR-15 is a weapon of war, made for killing people quickly, that has no place in civilian hands" and "an AR-15 is completely unsuitable for self-defense", and "Even the most heavily armed populace stands no chance at out-gunning its governing state". All three of these things cannot be true at the same time.
- eyelidlessness 3y agoSince you’re directly quoting me in one of the three, I’ll just point out that I haven’t said either of the other two, here or anywhere else. You can’t establish internal inconsistency by merely superimposing multiple viewpoints onto one of them.
- jakogut 3y agoI see your point. I didn't mean to imply that those were also things you have said, I meant to demonstrate that I _have_ heard all three of those things from others before.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoJanuary 6th was a "legitimate" threat, not in the sense that the mob could have overcome the US military, but in the sense that, if they could have forced/intimidated Congress into declaring Trump the winner, that appearance of legitimacy could have blinded enough people (or enabled them to rationalize) to kick off a real civil war.
- xscott 3y agoI don't think your distinction is compelling. You're trying to have your cake and eat it too.