Tyranny in America? Somewhat funny vid

[longBallLima]

Then what will you do? Fire at them?

[AestheticOne]

Then what will you do? Fire at them?

If i felt my life was being threatened, no shit.

[longBallLima]

If i felt my life was being threatened, no shit.

Your Life? What do you envision that entails the National Guard carrying out random executions?

[h2s]

Your Life? What do you envision that entails the National Guard carrying out random executions?

He is guy faux

[h2s]

To be honest, I have not heard anyone in the political arena directly challenging the validity of the 2nd Amendment, and at this point in time, I am not "afraid" it is going away. I think gun owners/consumers are upset with the changes to the law and are asserting the 2nd Amendment as ammunition for that. I'll be honest, I'm not all that fired up about certain guns being restricted in ownership. Obviously, the bonafide assault rifle has been banned for more years than some of you guys have been alive. People can certainly defend their homes and family with shotguns and handguns. What does concern me is watching trends overall. Not just with guns, but with many freedoms that people enjoyed that have been signed away into law.

Honestly, liberty was always broken promise. Every society has always had limitations on true liberty for the greater good of that society.

I may be viewing this from a different set of glasses than you, so maybe you can help me understand your point better. From my perspective, the point of gun ownership, aside from hunting, has always been the same: protection for yourself/family, your property, and from government gone wrong. Points could be made on both sides of the argument whether or not you need protection from your own government. But I think the other two reasons are less disputable.

My point was that in those days, it was more of a wild west. To think that the members of this board lie in bed at night with the same fear of their homes being pillaged as some of our founding generations is absurd. The protection of ones self is an overblown defense in my eyes. I would love to see true and accurate statistics on guns used to save lives verse destroy them. Although an accurate study on this would be near impossible, I have a feeling as to what the results would be.

I know one person (and "know" is a loose term, as we never met, it was a father on of a friend) who saved their own life with a gun. Unfortunately he is now dead. When some thug piece of shit in Detroit tried to rob his store, he reacted properly to the threat of a gun facing him by shooting the man. Unfortunately, there was a response at a later date where he was shot dead in his store. Did his gun save his life the first time? Very much so, but to think it didn't feed a never ending circle of gun violence is ignorant. I don't at all fault the usage of his gun, I think he did exactly what he should have. Unfortunately, the end picture was a more accurate depiction of the benefit of guns.

Now what happened if his son was there, a gun owner, who sought vengeance? The slope keeps getting steeper.

Illinois just passed conceal and carry. I am not a fan. One of my buddies is and is also licensed (although I don't know what step he took for the c&c yet). I told him that under this law, all of the pieces of shit I deal with on a daily basis while commuting on the train, can now have a weapon on them and I wouldn't know. His response was that criminals carry them already, so if I had one, and they knew I could have one. They would be less prone to pulling the gun on me (I disagreed, stating that it would probably lead him to shoot it instead of intimidate with it). My better example, however, was on bars. How many completely normal people have you all seen go absolutely crazy in a bar fight. I have seen bar fights where seemingly normal people smash each other's head through glass. Knock men out cold, break bottles on each other, etc..what happens when both of these people have a gun? Why the fuck do I have to worry about this when I am at a club trying to enjoy some music...is that not an invasion of my rights?


I know c&c is not the topic of this thread, but it is relevant.

[burlyman30]

Every society has always had limitations on true liberty for the greater good of that society.

This assumes a couple things... first, that the government has the best interests of it's citizens at heart. Second, it assumes that government knows better than it's citizens which liberties that can be handled.

Let me say that there are some great people in government. But power corrupts. And a corrupt government cannot be trusted to think selflessly of it's citizens best interest. Look at congress' recent vote to increase our social security tax by 50% while concurrently voting themselves a pay raise. Which of these actions was for the good of society?

There are some easy laws to put forth, like "do not murder" that obviously are for the greater good of society. No brainer there. But even motorcycle helmet laws, while meant to protect citizens, infringe on personal choice. I lost my brother to a motorcycle accident in which he was without a helmet. In his case, a helmet probably would not have saved his life. But I support the ability of an adult to decide if he will put himself in harms way like that. I personally would ride with a helmet.

[Rulk]

My point was that in those days, it was more of a wild west. To think that the members of this board lie in bed at night with the same fear of their homes being pillaged as some of our founding generations is absurd.

My Mom, who lives all alone, when her house got broken into, it immediatly got my attention. Every little fear I had dismissed before then started to come back and prompt me to think along the lines of "self defense". I'm of the belief that if you feel safe in your own home and don't prepare for situations and events, that is on you. Those that think otherwise seem to be labeled as paranoid, which doesn't seem fair.

Speaking for myself, I would rather be prepared for almost any situation, just in case. Call me paranoid or a survivalist, whatever, if it keeps me and my family alive I can easily justify it. Essentially my thought pattern echoes countless of humans before me. It's part of our survival instinct, to try and think of every dire situation that one can find themselves in. That flight or fight response to the noise at night? That is survival instinct at it's base, and it just snowballs from there?

Is it reasonable? Is any of it in good taste? Do we look a little foolish? To try and dissect all that, is trivial. Untill we live in a complet and perfect utopia, this will keep going on and on.

[Rulk]

The debate should be whether we can change human nature or not. The horses are already out of the barn, we must think of other ways to help lower violent crimes.

[h2s]

This assumes a couple things... first, that the government has the best interests of it's citizens at heart. Second, it assumes that government knows better than it's citizens which liberties that can be handled.

Let me say that there are some great people in government. But power corrupts. And a corrupt government cannot be trusted to think selflessly of it's citizens best interest. Look at congress' recent vote to increase our social security tax by 50% while concurrently voting themselves a pay raise. Which of these actions was for the good of society?

There are some easy laws to put forth, like "do not murder" that obviously are for the greater good of society. No brainer there. But even motorcycle helmet laws, while meant to protect citizens, infringe on personal choice. I lost my brother to a motorcycle accident in which he was without a helmet. In his case, a helmet probably would not have saved his life. But I support the ability of an adult to decide if he will put himself in harms way like that. I personally would ride with a helmet.

Good post. I have heard the argument before, but yours was well stated. I still disagree, however. I think our government is corrupt. This is evident everyday with corporate bribe scandals, pay raises as you stated, etc...but I don't for a second buy that the government doesn't have our interests, in terms of public safety, as a core foundation. Even looking at it from an extremely "corruption-based" angle, it is in their interest career and legacy wise to keep tragedy out of the country.

The government doesn't know better than it's citizens. However, a country in which citizens vote on every matter would be non-functional. Therefore we elect individuals, based on our interpretation of their intention, and how aligned we presume it to be with ours. While the system works no where near as well as the theory, it does work, at least as a best possible solution.

Ill begin my last point with my condolence for your brother, while I have never lost a sibling, I couldn't imagine what it is like. There is an interesting point, however, that can be seen in this type of situation and others similar to it. While forcing a rider to wear a helmet may take away a sense of liberty from that person, it does serve a purpose. While your brother was most likely insured, etc...these is a cost to the government when an accident becomes fatal (and for this example we can assume that the chance of an accident being fatal in a motorcycle accident is less than that of one where no helmet is being worn). In the event of a fatal accident, there are more first responders to a scene, more government time/resources spent on the accident, government processing of paperwork, potential locking up of the court systems if lawsuits are brought between related parties, etc...While the accident is not cost-less when there is no fatality, it can take significantly less government resources to resolve.

This definitely seems to take a "greedy" look at the reasoning for these types of enacted laws, but I did so purposely, to tie back to my prior point that even in the greediest/most corrupt angle, public safety is still a desire of elected officials.

Burly, even though we often disagree, you are actually one of my favorite people to debate politics with. You are just moderate right enough, and I am just moderate left enough (remember, I am not for a full ban on guns, something the left would want), that I think we agree on many of the larger pictures, and bicker on the details.

[h2s]

My Mom, who lives all alone, when her house got broken into, it immediatly got my attention. Every little fear I had dismissed before then started to come back and prompt me to think along the lines of "self defense". I'm of the belief that if you feel safe in your own home and don't prepare for situations and events, that is on you. Those that think otherwise seem to be labeled as paranoid, which doesn't seem fair.

Speaking for myself, I would rather be prepared for almost any situation, just in case. Call me paranoid or a survivalist, whatever, if it keeps me and my family alive I can easily justify it. Essentially my thought pattern echoes countless of humans before me. It's part of our survival instinct, to try and think of every dire situation that one can find themselves in. That flight or fight response to the noise at night? That is survival instinct at it's base, and it just snowballs from there?

Is it reasonable? Is any of it in good taste? Do we look a little foolish? To try and dissect all that, is trivial. Untill we live in a complet and perfect utopia, this will keep going on and on.

I understand where you are coming from, and I know people of a similar mentality. My mentality is simple: If I live a life of fear, I am not living, so I don't care to fret over something with such a small chance of occurring. I do not know how I would react if my house was broken into and I was home. I can tell you my first reaction would be to protect those with me, but who knows how it would go to someone who is untrained. Even with a gun in the house, what if I cant get to it? What if he is too fast to approach me? If I keep worrying to this level, I should just build a moat and fortress around my house. It just isn't practical.