I think it's really clear then: We should require military training for anyone that wants to own a gun, and they should be subject to being called up for the common defense.
Problem solved.
How much training did the average militiaman receive prior to being called up for duty in the Revolutionary War? Did they have common uniforms? Common weapons? Our equivalent to basic training that a normal professional soldier goes through?
The entire point behind this clause was that every day citizens, who didn't necessarily have training, but did have their own weapons, could be called upon to defend themselves and the State.
Correct! The idea was that people could be called up, and Washington's speech was about how everyone should be trained so that when called up they could be better at doing the thing for which their ownership of guns was justified.
I say we run with Washington's vision for America and bring every gun owner into the fold: Train them, give them uniforms, and hold them as potential candidates for being called up should the need arise.
This has the side benefit, of the 'revolution' types, of training and preparing the people of the US to overcome any tyrant that may try to take control.
Further, if someone is found with a gun and not trained they are immediately brought in for training. Should someone be a ass-hat about it, that someone would face military justice.
It really does solve the public health problem of gun ownership.
The US is pretty unique in its gun culture, and what do we have to show for it other than a bunch of dead people? We're not keeping any police or government forces in check with it, they're all armed with military grade hardware and could take a dump down our collective necks if our collective firepower were all that stood in their way.
There is no public health problem of gun ownership. .
The primary function of retaining an armed populace in the US is to defend the people against the government. On a local level, private gun ownership can look bad, but on a national level it's a powerful stabilizing factor. Having a few hundred million firearms out there gets people's attention. Look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc...military firepower isn't all it's cracked up to be against a determined opponent. It would be all but impossible to defeat a patriotic insurgency in the US, because
1. People are armed.
2. The government doesn't know where all the arms are, and there are too many of them to take them all at once even if they did know.
3. There are millions of people who would die defending this country from despots (at least ones they realized were despots).
4. Large parts of the armed forces would get tired of mass-murdering their own countrymen and would join or support them.
5. The entirety of the military's supply line would be in "enemy" territory. Ask Hitler how that went for him when he set up death camps in western Russia instead of arming the locals and pointing them toward Moscow.
Similar problems exist for foreign governments who would eye us- you can't infect an AR-15 with a virus, it's not damaged by EMPs, and it doesn't require electricity. Toss in good old American unpredictability (not a joke, btw), and we are the opposite of a tempting target.
But take away #1, and all that crumbles. Freedom isn't free, and gun violence is inevitable in an armed, heterogeneous country. It's a version of MAD- no politician who really tried to take over the US would stay in office long.
For now. Until we decay further. But I don't live in then- I live in now.
Note: I am not a gun owner, and I would never shoot anyone for any reason. I'm just talking about secular reality.
2nd amendment is just red herring. Say a government is so bad to the point that people want to revolt, do you think said government is going to follow the constitution and allow the militia to assemble and gather arms? Or that people will not pick up arms because the 2nd amendment doesn't exist?
22 Veterans kill themselves every day, 2 out of 3 victims of gun violence are suicide victims. 9 out of 10 people who are stopped from killing themselves never try again.
If many fewer people owned guns many fewer people would die.
It is a public health crisis.
The primary function of retaining an armed populace in the US is to defend the people against the government. On a local level, private gun ownership can look bad, but on a national level it's a powerful stabilizing factor. Having a few hundred million firearms out there gets people's attention. Look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc...military firepower isn't all it's cracked up to be against a determined opponent. It would be all but impossible to defeat a patriotic insurgency in the US, because
1. People are armed.
2. The government doesn't know where all the arms are, and there are too many of them to take them all at once even if they did know.
3. There are millions of people who would die defending this country from despots (at least ones they realized were despots).
4. Large parts of the armed forces would get tired of mass-murdering their own countrymen and would join or support them.
5. The entirety of the military's supply line would be in "enemy" territory. Ask Hitler how that went for him when he set up death camps in western Russia instead of arming the locals and pointing them toward Moscow.
Similar problems exist for foreign governments who would eye us- you can't infect an AR-15 with a virus, it's not damaged by EMPs, and it doesn't require electricity. Toss in good old American unpredictability (not a joke, btw), and we are the opposite of a tempting target.
But take away #1, and all that crumbles. Freedom isn't free, and gun violence is inevitable in an armed, heterogeneous country. It's a version of MAD- no politician who really tried to take over the US would stay in office long.
For now. Until we decay further. But I don't live in then- I live in now.
Note: I am not a gun owner, and I would never shoot anyone for any reason. I'm just talking about secular reality.
People will find another way to kill themselves. That's what happened in Australia. Gun suicides went down, overall suicides stayed the same.
I am clearly NOT arguing that we ban guns. I'm arguing we use the tools available to us to reduce gun ownership.But fuck no, we just need to ban guns.
It doesn't require that this many people be armed for the value of what you see in 1. With the same number of guns, but 1 in 100 people actually owning the guns, the ability to form a well armed militia isn't changed. So if we're invaded, or someone starts up death-camps, we're still set as the patriots acting as our bastilles would no doubt share their 'stabilizing power'
Only the ability to form an ad-hoc mob is harmed by taxing guns so the point where everyone but the collector is willing to sell them.
Oh yea... and Gun manufacturers... the whole "gun rights" movement is an artifact of a group of corporations working hard at marketing so they can sell you their shit.
Sorry buddy, if you don't get that, then you're just another gulable rube.
I'm going to need a citation on this: I'm basing my previous argumentation off of studies i'd previously read. If you are correct then it does change my basic argument.
However, as I said, previous studies show that people who do not have an easy opportunity to kill themselves in the moment when they feel the most depressed tend to never go about killing themselves.
I am clearly NOT arguing that we ban guns. I'm arguing we use the tools available to us to reduce gun ownership.
It doesn't require that this many people be armed for the value of what you see in 1. With the same number of guns, but 1 in 100 people actually owning the guns, the ability to form a well armed militia isn't changed. So if we're invaded, or someone starts up death-camps, we're still set as the patriots acting as our bastilles would no doubt share their 'stabilizing power'
Only the ability to form an ad-hoc mob is harmed by taxing guns so the point where everyone but the collector is willing to sell them.
Oh yea... and Gun manufacturers... the whole "gun rights" movement is an artifact of a group of corporations working hard at marketing so they can sell you their shit.
Sorry buddy, if you don't get that, then you're just another gulable rube.
Oh, my. I could write a book on this...but I'm tired, so this'll be brief.
Restrict ownership to 1 in 100? Okay. Who decides who's the 1?
From the article:
Also this is the 1996 gun buyback NOT the most recent banning of guns. However it does show that my idea of reducing gun ownership correlates with reduced suicide.
ALSO the total number of suicides to total number of gun suicides in Australia is so different from the US that the benefit seen in Australia would be massively potentiated in the US.
The free market: by making guns much more expensive only collectors will be interested in owning them. Everyone else will cash in on the now much higher value.
ps
Safari screwed me I spelled it gullible and it said "nope!"
The free market
making guns much more expensive
The primary function of retaining an armed populace in the US is to defend the people against the government.
Yeah and it's pretty good at that for all the reasons you mentioned. The thing is though, this is the US, not Afghanistan. I'd argue that we haven't needed that kind of safeguard in about about a hundred years, we're too prosperous, too educated, and ultimately too stable for coups to be a serious concern. It's not just a vestigial organ in our national anatomy though, it's actually harmful because it gives so many of us a false sense of security. No citizen militia will ever oppose the kinds of government overreach and disenfranchisement that are the most dangerous, because they're quiet, creeping, and for our protection. How many stormed the NSA when Snowden's leaks hit, and have there been any raids on their Utah data center? Will being armed help if my employer brings in a bunch of illegals to replace me? Has anyone tried to bust out detainees held indefinitely in Gitmo? How about the TSA, how is any of this protecting us from their arbitrary BS? How will armed citizens help us with the militarization of police, or with their casual disregard for our civil rights?
I'm not saying that guns need to make everything better, though I could since that sentiment gets thrown around a lot whenever threads like this are posted. What I'm saying is they're really good at protecting us from things that generally aren't realistic concerns, and they're useless for real problems. At best, their place in our society is to make us feel empowered despite being powerless. Yay.
It shows nothing of the sort. It only shows a downward trend, one which had been continuing for years. That couldn't be because the Aussie economy was doing better, could it?
Or how our rates went higher because our economy was doing worse?
A very apt statement.At best, their place in our society is to make us feel empowered despite being powerless.
Your argument that things didn't change is not the same as "yea, things changed, but there might be confounding variables".
You'd be better off sticking with the "but other violent crime went up" argument.
angminas: Taxation of new manufacturing does not eliminate the ability of people to buy and sell at a market clearing equilibrium. It simply acts as another of many variables that influence what that equilibrium is.
If you WANT to sell a gun for $1 no one will stop you; however if you make a gun and want to sell it for $1 you'll still owe the taxes.
A very apt statement.
If fewer people owned guns more people would actually care to change the system. A palliative like the gun-owneship narrative only serves to perpetuate the oligarchs.
If fewer people owned guns more people would actually care to change the system.
But they would have less power to do so.
Thanks for remembering!I hope one day you realize what a tool you are being right now. Even Phd's are bound to repeat history apparently.
Still waiting for anti-gun peeps to support banning alcohol for the massive strain it puts on the health and prison system.
I'm not quite sure about that... perhaps if we concentrated gun ownership into the hands of only people who don't care about the price of the gun (collectors, pure enthusiasts willing to suffer a massive opportunity cost, etc.) and then we registered those gun owners, it would make confiscating their guns easy.
But if we provided for a high school class in gun use, and concentrated gun ownership into the hands of the above mentioned few, then if the time ever came they would likely be patriotic enough to share their weapons with their fellow-trained individuals.
Thanks for remembering!
I take being intellectually honest seriously.... a little less seriously on the ATOT forums... but in all honesty if you have a real counter point i'm willing to listen.
That the point you brought up would have been quite good is awesome! I like to find out that i'm wrong; it forces me to think about things differently. And i'm not afraid to change beliefs based on new evidence.
I'll keep digging down the line of argumentation you made and see what I find: Perhaps "the national review" just isn't very good at making arguments and the data better backs up your conclusion than the fluff I just read.
Again, not banning: Taxing.
Really, if we can make luxuries like alcohol, tobacco, fire arms, etc. expensive via taxation then we can fund the treasury through taxes people choose to pay and reduce the consumption of things which are bad for the public health.
However, the elasticity of demand for fire arms is, i'm sure, something quite different from tobacco. With alcohol somewhere in the middle. So abusing addicts is not nearly as positive socially.
I'm not quite sure about that... perhaps if we concentrated gun ownership into the hands of only people who don't care about the price of the gun (collectors, pure enthusiasts willing to suffer a massive opportunity cost, etc.) and then we registered those gun owners, it would make confiscating their guns easy.
But if we provided for a high school class in gun use, and concentrated gun ownership into the hands of the above mentioned few, then if the time ever came they would likely be patriotic enough to share their weapons with their fellow-trained individuals.
Still waiting for anti-gun peeps to support banning alcohol for the massive strain it puts on the health and prison system.