Molon Labe? Gimme a break.

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If somehow it could be guaranteed that violence was swept from the face of the earth, would you give up your guns?
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Sendec, this statement is as asinine as it is insulting. By even making such a statement you're tacitly stating that peaceful gun owners somehow really are to blame for violent crime.

Maybe we should ask all the SCCA members to give up their fast cars in order to end vehicular homicide.

:rolleyes:
 
Of course not.

I have arguably never needed a gun in my life. I have never needed a gun for self defense, food, or survival.

However, I derive great joy from owning and shooting firearms in competition and plinking just for the sheer enjoyment of it. Without firearms, I daresay that my quality of life would be rather less than it is right now.

If sendec can be just as happy leading a life without firearms, more power to him. He's certainly free to go find a web forum about philately, botany, furries, holography, rebuilding small block engines, wine appreciation, Dance-Dance Revolution, or any other of the countless hobbies that human beings enjoy partaking in.

:scrutiny:
 
Doing what is right is seldom easy, safe or popular. Doing right in this case requires me to resist any threat to freedom. This means fighting battles against restrictive laws in the legislature and courts, against would be dictators at the ballot box and any other possible threat with the legal means at my disposal. If this fails me, I'll have no choice. I will be compelled to do everything within my power to restore freedom. I dread this. I have no illusions of success, but I’m compelled to try. Maybe you don’t feel this obligation, that’s fine with me.


David
 
Returning to the world of the concrete... :uhoh:

A number of you have made the excellent point that the public schools are where the crucial battles are being fought today. What do you think would happen if we took a small fraction of the effort going towards grousing on the internet and put it towards pushing for school vouchers in your states?

Of course, the ultimate goal would be the destruction of the public school system. The goods that this would accomplish are far too many to list, provided that education was still available to those who need it.

Nobody wants to see a revolution (I hope), and the best way to prevent one is to oppose the statist infrastructure wherever it is found. I think some of us are so fixated on firearms as the ONE AND ONLY issue, that we lose sight of the strategic picture. The schools are the key.
 
If somehow it could be guaranteed that violence was swept from the face of the earth, would you give up your guns?
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Nope, because my supply of guns and ammo would allow me to take over the world. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!


In all seriousness though, no, I would not give up my firearms because I am human. Humans are a violent species, as are any other predators on the globe. It is actually not even possible in fantasy land for your scenario to play out, as we would have had to eradicate anything capable of inflicting violence upon man from the animal kingdom as well as somehow neuter the fight/flight part of the human central nervous system. Who eradicated the polar bears? Who eradicated the wolves? Who eradicated the venemous snakes? Who eradicated the lions? Who eradicated the Brown bear? Who eradicated the elephant? Who eradicated the leopard?

Whoever "swept" that violence from the face of the earth must have been pretty damn violent. I think I'll keep 'em.
 
goalie has beat me to what I was going to say. Sure, we're for the most part prepared to do what we have to in order to protect ourselves should the unthinkable happen and they "come and get them".

But....there's a strong chance that we can avoid that time if we are all proactive and write letters to the papers, write our legislators, take young people shooting, etc. If we are proactive we can avoid the ultimate reactive measures should more restrictive laws be enacted.
 
Goalie...I gather that you lack the capacity for abstract thought. Of course, it would be impossoble to guarantee against all violence...simply not possible...that wasnt the question. The question posed was IF it were possible, and the only way to achieve this was to give up all guns...would you? No strings of slavery or serfdom apply, its simply a question in and of itself.

If I could, you bet your a$$ I would. Guns are simply a tool..I derive great enjoyment out of them...but I would get much, much more enjoyment knowing my daughter would never see violence. I tend to agree with Sendec on this one..I believe most Molon Labe true believers derive more from the fight than from the reason....
 
Of course my vision of a peaceful world will never come to pass, but some of the reponses seem to indicate that the writers desire to possess weapons more than they desire a non-violent world.

Humans are competitive, and only violent as an abberration. We are violent when we cannot find other solutions to a problem. We are hardly predators, only binocular vision and rudimentary canine teeth remains of a predatory heritage. We need weapons because we dont have claws, shells, and are fundamentally weaker than many other animals.
 
"if you never needed weapons", woul dyou give up guns or keep them anyway?


Yes
As I have mentioned on this board many times before, the defensive (or in the case of this thread, the offensive) capabilities of firearms are way down the list of why I own firearms. I owned firearms as a young kid living in a semi-rural area without a care in the world about violence and crime. I own firearms for many reasons: this discusssion only deals with one of them.
Actually, I find this whole tihng kind of interesting. It is the battle that we constantly face in the gun rights struggle. It is the red vs. the blue states. People who come from "the city" see guns as weapons. People from "the country" see guns as tools, family heirlooms etc. I realize this is a generalization, but I think you get the idea.
Out of all the guns I own, I only consider a couple of them to be "serious" guns. The rest are for my enjoyment. I seldom carry a gun. I don't always have a loaded gun in the house for protection. But I wouldn't miss that next match.
 
It's not about shooting JBTs -- it's about 100 dollar haircut empty suit congress critters and robed idiots called judges. Those are your targets. ;)
 
RileyMc: Weimadog-you're confused-the President does not make law-that would be the Congress
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... and Bush signed the Campaign Finance Reform Bill into law. He could have vetoed it.

Of course we can hold the President responsible for the bills he signs into law! :fire:
 
Now that we've moved on to topics such as how everything is Bush's fault (No it's NOT! Yes it IS!) and which of our fellow members lack the capacity for abstract thought, I think this one has outlived its usefulness.

On The High Road, by the way, the fact that someone refuses to play a game of hypotheticals with you does not give you license to insult his intellect. I hope I won't see that again.
 
Well then, Don, if it's run its course ya shoulda locked it! :)

If anything the pendulum is beginning to swing away from the the breaking point. We are, in my estimation, inching farther and farther away from "throw down" time.

I can agree with this up to a point. The problem with it is that it would take a minimum amount of energy to stop the movement our way. A Kerry victory, a loss of the Senate and/or House. Just the wrong SCOTUS appointment. We're winning but it is very tentative. It would be all too easy to lose all headway and slide back down the slope if we're not very carefule. Specifically very careful THIS election.
 
Sendec

I would'nt believe those people were killed because they did'nt have guns (which is the opposite of "Gun Violence -that guns are responsible for death and injury) - they were killed by a lack of warriors in the right place at the right time.
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I respect your right to believe what you wish. However, I would hope that you'd try to be a bit less hypothetical and a bit more realistic - if a lack of firearms or other weapons in the hands of victims didn't have anything to do with their murder, then why did the Nazis pass and enforce laws that prohibited those very people from having weapons? There IS a connection. Yeah, it is theoretically possible for an intelligent and determined individual to resist tyranny without any manmade weapons (i.e. guns, knives, etc.), at least initially. Such a person can resist with a rock or a sharpened stick. Maybe they even have training in the martial arts, and can resist very well. Such a person may be successful for a while, perhaps even for quite a while. However, looking at the mass of people this is not possible. Most people will choose not to fight an extremely well armed group of police or soldiers without having an equalizer (i.e. guns) of their own. They view it as an exercise in futility - and maybe they beat themselves by giving up in that way but, again, this is how the mass of humans would act...especially considering that the mass of people don't have military or martial arts training. Give them guns and then things would be different - just look at the Warsaw Ghetto uprising for evidence of this. Oh, by the way, how is a 75 year old grandmother supposed to resist a 6'2", 180 pound trained soldier who is armed with a rifle or a machine pistol? Surely you don't expect her to become a warrior overnight, not when the most hostile thing she's ever done is to cut up some pieces of dead meat to throw in the oven for dinner. C'mon, Sendec, you're too intelligent to discuss resistance to a tyranny like the Nazi government and state that guns aren't needed.

If somehow it could be guaranteed that violence was swept from the face of the earth, would you give up your guns?
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Probably not. I wouldn't, in such a fantasy world, keep my guns for self protection, or for defense against my government or a foreign invasion. But I've developed an attachment to them (esp. the older pieces that I have, which likely "saw" combat and "witnessed" world wars), and I like the hobbies of reloading and shooting. If violence has been eliminated, then I'm no threat to anyone either, am I? If that's the case, then why can't I keep them? What would be the reason why I'd need to give them up?

Besides, someone has to be armed when the aliens invade...:p
 
sendec

Of course my vision of a peaceful world will never come to pass, but some of the reponses seem to indicate that the writers desire to possess weapons more than they desire a non-violent world.
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Far from it. I think the vast majority of us would prefer a non-violent world, but since we live in the real one, we recognize that such a thing will never occur. It runs counter to human nature. I see you're also saying that guns = violence. That part wasnt missed.
Humans are competitive, and only violent as an abberration. We are violent when we cannot find other solutions to a problem. We are hardly predators, only binocular vision and rudimentary canine teeth remains of a predatory heritage. We need weapons because we dont have claws, shells, and are fundamentally weaker than many other animals.
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I wouldnt say we are only violent as an abberation or use violence when we cannot find other solutions. This presupposes the idea that all humans are the same and that violence is inherently bad. Some people, quite frankly, are bad - evil if you prefer. Because of this, they wish to do harm to others which requires those of us who are good - i.e. the rest of us - to put a stop to that harm. This frequently requires applying force, violence if you prefer, to the person doing the harm. After that, we go back to our normal, peaceful lives.

BTW - you forgot the single most important biological indicator - our brain size relative to body size. Predatory animals have larger brains - and humans have one of the largest - again, relative to body size. The larger brain seems to come from a need to solve problems, and in our case, invent tools. Our ability to adapt the world to our purposes is the equivalent of the claws of the lion or the shell of a turtle.
 
Seeing as how this hasn't been locked, maybe we can bring it back closer to the topic.

Why didn't / haven't the gun owners in the U.K. and Australia resisted violently? I mean this as a serious question and don't mean to be pejorative toward them or to those on either side of the debate here. If you search around on the Internet, you can find stories about gun owners in those countries standing in line at the police station waiting, with teary eyes, to hand in their guns, reminiscing about how "this was my dad's rifle from the war" or "this pistol belonged to my granddad, I don't know why I have to turn it in." There's also usually some graphic description of the sparks from the back-room diamond-bladed cutting wheel bisecting some irreplaceable firearm. In those places, gun confiscation isn't just something to speculate about on an Internet gun board - it has happened.

Take this situation as a hypothetical: There is a new federal law declaring all NFA weapons and all detachable magazine centerfire weapons to be contraband, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in. The practical effect of this (allowing for the "uh, I sold those" or "they were stolen" responses to 4473 traces) would be that you couldn't use these weapons in public / at a range for fear of being caught and imprisoned. My unproven (May it remain so! Vote!) assumption is that the molon labe spirit would motivate 500 of the people affected by the law to resist with violence and that only 1% of them would proactively resist with violence by going after Aunt Bee (see above, and note that I am NOT advocating this).

The usual excuse I hear for the absence of even a tiny violent response* to even worse bans in the U. K. / Australia is that people from those places don't have the kind of strong gun culture that we have in the USA; Henry Bowman doesn't live there. I don't buy it. My theory is that gun owners there, like many of us, have families and attendant responsibilities, and that they also, like nearly all of us, have a strong moral disinclination toward killing that hasn't been overcome in the absence of an immediate threat to their physical person (i.e., JBT's blasting down the door). "Hmm, I can turn in / bury this gun, or I can resist and be killed / imprisoned and my family goes on without me." Or: "I can violently resist and be injured / imprisoned / killed and nothing will happen except that the newspapers will print 'GUN NUT KILLED' in 36 point type headlines, or I can turn in / bury these guns." I hear the stories / jokes about how sales of PVC pipe went up dramatically in Australia when the new bans were announced, but what kind of answer is that?

FWIW, I'm with the gang that thinks that things are getting better in the USA and that if we keep writing / speaking out / voting, things will keep getting better. After the POLITICAL bloodbath that resulted from the last AWB, politicians will wait a long time before acting on those made-up anti-gun polls shoved at them from seldom-showered Michael Moore types. Politicians want to get reelected so they don't have to get a real job.

*If there has been such a response, I am unaware of it.
 
I didn't read all the responses yet but here's how I see it...

We are borrowing this country from our children & grandchildren, keepers handed the responsibility from our forfathers to keep it safe and deliver it in good shape. Failures have been made. We're already backed into a corner by such nicities as 'Don't like it, get out', 'It's the law' We'll kill you'

Blatent threats!

Molon Labe? Damn right its scary. Who wants to firefight? Only an idiot. It doesn't release us from the responsibility though. Inaction in the face of danger has a name. (Anyone? Bueller?)

Action in the face of danger also has a name. (Anyone?)

Being obligated to action in the face of danger has yet a third name. (Anyone?)

Our rights and country have been slipping away incrementally. One incident at a time, one precedent at a time. If we want to retain our country, our rights will have to be taken a stand for incrementally until restoration is complete. What does that mean? That means YOU, and you and you. I don't think it means relinquishing your rights now and going to court to beg for them back. Pipe dream extrodinaire. I don't think it means going offensive and blowing things up like McVeigh did either. I think it means taking a stand behind your blade of grass and not giving up. There can be no compromise at this point. We've compromised our country into extinction almost and what do we get for it? Robbed, hostility, jailed, killed...Where's our part of the deal in the compromise? Hollow promises?

Those of you who wont take a stand against the enforcement minions...say I'll be killed or jailed and my family needs me...what about your grandchildren? Don't they count? Tough tittie for them? I don't understand that. If you came home and someone was raping your daughter or wife and had a knife in their hand, do you back down and offer no assisstance because you might be hurt or killed yourself? Whats different because of an official looking uniform?
 
Goalie...I gather that you lack the capacity for abstract thought
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First off, I would compare college GPAs with you any time for classes such as ethics, bioethics, philosophy and the like. I am capable of abstract thought, but I choose not to waste my time in a fantasy land that isn't even possible. In fact, my time would be better spent making a daily shopping list for when I win the lottery, because that might actually happen someday.

Let's face it, many of us would not even want to live in a world where danger from nature (let alone other man) didn't even exist. Use that enlightened imagination to picture a world where a firearm has absolutely no chance of ever being used in self-defense.

I always thought that song "Imagine" was infantile and intellectually sophmoric. I still do.
 
"In fact, my time would be better spent making a daily shopping list for when I win the lottery, because that might actually happen someday."

Good post !!!!!

JBT
 
Goalie, the place that Lilysdad speaks of will never exist. If it did he would be out of a job. Only after great suffering and tribulation will such a place be a reality. Fantasy and reality are polar opposites and one always prevails over the other. People are people and will continue to be human and follow human nature. It would take a major spiritual intervention to change this. I'm not willing to wager anything less than death when presented a choice of fantasyland or human nature. I wil live or die with the peace of knowing I didn't kneel and beg for my freedom. This is not the same amerika our forefathers left for us. It hasn't been for a long time. The fantasylanders have corrupted minds and given away your rights to others who blatantly abuse it.
 
If somehow it could be guaranteed that violence was swept from the face of the earth, would you give up your guns? I would, I am not a sportsman and have no other need for my moderate collection than putting bullets into bad people. But I dont want to have to do that.
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Gun control is not about guns. It's about the power of the state over its citizens. Fundamentally that power rests on a threat of violence from the state. The check the Founders preserved to balance against that threat of violence from the leviathan state was the right to keep and bear arms. If the world is without violence, then the state itself will vanish and the whole thing will be a moot point because there will be no entity to round up our iron.

And if violence ends because of deevine intervention, I'll really want to have my firearms to celebrate properly :D
 
Meaning that -- if laws were passed next week -- you would feel compelled by principle to take a shot at an LEO coming to your house to enforce the law. Or that you would participate in lethal resistance against our armed forces. Come and Get Them.
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You know... I find myself strangely comfortable with that. ;)

Others have explained the reasoning and ethics behind it better than I can, but I honestly don't have a problem with the principle. And I like most cops I've met.

It is tactically stupid to go for the pointy end guys lining up outside your door though. If it ever does come to Molon Labe, I'd advise aiming higher up the foodchain.
 
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