So. We are paranoid to worry about them confiscating our guns, are we?

[Valles]

Okay, I'm done. I can't debate with a paranoid.

I appreciate your trying, though. If I'd spoken up I'd probably have been reduced to incoherent expletives by this point.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Morganite]

Not that I know of, but these events are so rare that you could probably compile it yourself from old news reports in a day or so.

This is an important point - while we'd obviously like to *not* have mass shootings, they make up such a small percentage of gun homicides that looking at them probably isn't all that helpful in reducing the overall amount of deaths.

@robkelk: Hope you're not bowing out entirely? I'm still looking into a couple of the studies you referred to.

-Morgan.

[robkelk]

@robkelk: Hope you're not bowing out entirely? I'm still looking into a couple of the studies you referred to.

Not completely, but I'll be busy for the rest of this weekend and early next week so my replies may be later than usual.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Morganite]

I am the last person who gets to complain about that.

Especially since Monday is probably the soonest I'll be able to reply to that part.

-Morgan.

[ECSNorway]

robkelk wrote:

---

Logan Darklighter wrote:

---

I just have a simple question:

What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" is so damn difficult to understand?

Rights come with responsibilities.

Responsibility is a concept that humanity as a whole has clearly agreed to part ways with.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Jorlem]

This newspaper article was shown to me, and I found some of the statistics to be very interesting.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Valles]

What, there are people who didn't know about the suicide statistics? That surprises me more than anything else in this thread, honestly.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[khagler]

Jorlem wrote:

---

This newspaper article was shown to me, and I found some of the statistics to be very interesting.

Summary: most people who commit suicide in the US shoot themselves. That's actually been pretty widely known for decades, but it's unusual for the mainstream media to admit it--they generally like to talk about "gun deaths," ignoring both why that person died and anybody who was killed with something else. I think what you think about this fact depends on your other beliefs. The victim disarmers are generally socialists who regard suicide as destroying government property, so they think it's bad, but as I mentioned prefer to ignore it for propaganda reasons. Many other Americans are Christians, who believe that suicide is a sin. My view is that people own their own bodies, and if they want to kill themselves they have a fundamental right to do so. That said, I would prefer they do so by shooting themselves in their home than by jumping off a bridge in front of a commuter train during rush hour--it's just more considerate.
Suicide rates depend on cultural factors that really have nothing to do with the means available to commit suicide with. For example, Japan (where they go for the bridge-and-train method) has a much higher suicide rate than the US, Canada is about the same as the US, and Mexico is much lower than the US.

[Rev Dark]

Suicide rates depend on cultural factors that really have nothing to do
with the means available to commit suicide with. For example, Japan
(where they go for the bridge-and-train method) has a much higher
suicide rate than the US, Canada is about the same as the US, and Mexico
is much lower than the US.

Bullshit.  Suicide is often a decision contemplated at a low; and the convenience of a ready mechanism for such encourages acting on that decision immediately.  Death by gas in Britain being a text book example.  As coal gas was phased out and replaced by natural gas, suicide by coal gas (highly convenient - the classic head in the oven) fell to zero; and overall suicides were reduced by a third.

That said, I would prefer they do so by shooting themselves in their home
than by jumping off a bridge in front of a commuter train during rush
hour--it's just more considerate.

Your empathy stands as a shining beacon in the dark - not unlike the eye of Sauron..

[khagler]

Rev Dark wrote:

---

Suicide rates depend on cultural factors that really have nothing to do
with the means available to commit suicide with. For example, Japan
(where they go for the bridge-and-train method) has a much higher
suicide rate than the US, Canada is about the same as the US, and Mexico
is much lower than the US.

Bullshit.  Suicide is often a decision contemplated at a low; and the convenience of a ready mechanism for such encourages acting on that decision immediately.  Death by gas in Britain being a text book example.  As coal gas was phased out and replaced by natural gas, suicide by coal gas (highly convenient - the classic head in the oven) fell to zero; and overall suicides were reduced by a third.

And has been going back up again for years (it's currently about the same as the US and Canada. I guess British people actually aren't too stupid to find other ways to kill themselves if they can't use their ovens. (Incidentally, British disarmament is actually fairly recent--back when that coal gas was common, guns were too. Some grad student could probably get a study out of looking at British people gassing themselves versus shooting themselves.)
It's hardly any secret that the way people choose to kill themselves shifts depending on what they have to work with. People used to shoot themselves in Canada too, but as the government there has gotten more oppressive they've shifted to things like hanging.

[Black Aeronaut]

Argh... khagler, I can understand that you don't want people confiscating guns. I'm fine with that, really. But on the other hand I can understand that most people wouldn't want their friend or family member to blow their brains out just because they were suicidal and a gun happened to be at the ready.

I agree whole-heartedly that leaving a gun in the possession of a suicidal person is just plain stupid. However, I also feel that it is a decision not for the state to make, but for a licensed psychologist (even one employed by the state). Using suicide rates as an excuse to disarm Americans in general won't get anyone anywhere.

khagler wrote:

---

Personally,
I'm all in favor of abolishing the standing army (as the founders of
the US intended)

..... Okay, you know what I'm gonna do here?  I'll tell you what I'm gonna do here.  I'm gonna beat you over the head with freaking Art of War by Sun-freaking-Tzu!  Because no matter how paranoid you are, you cannot argue against Sun Tzu's incontrovertible truths.

Sun Tzu wrote:

---

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the
likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness
to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking,
but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.

You see, after the American Revolution, we had a problem: the British were still pretty damn sore about the whole affair.  Sore enough that they began to raid American ships and press gang their crews.  And thus the War of 1812 began.  (Sure, that wasn't the only reason, but it sure as hell was one of the prime motivators.)  And then we had no choice but to maintain not only a standing army, but a standing navy as well.
I'm not even gonna get into the whole getting rid of the police thing.  I don't even have any idea where in the blue fuck that came from, especially with that last bit there about people with guns imposing their will on others.  You make us sound like a nation of fucking slavers.

[khagler]

The people who wrote the Constitution regarded a standing army as a threat to liberty, so they wanted the US to be defended by its citizenry, with a conventional army only being raised in the event of a war and then disbanded afterwards. There have been many, many books written about early America--if you actually care, you might want to start by reading the Federalist Papers. Note that they didn't have anything against a standing navy.

As for the police, robkelk had proposed getting rid of the armed men who so many people advocate sending out to impose their whims. I don't really believe he meant it, but I replied that I was in favor of that--police are just the group most commonly used to to the imposing.

[robkelk]

You see, after the American Revolution, we had a problem: the British were still pretty damn sore about the whole affair. Sore enough that they began to raid American ships and press gang their crews. And thus the War of 1812 began. (Sure, that wasn't the only reason, but it sure as hell was one of the prime motivators.) And then we had no choice but to maintain not only a standing army, but a standing navy as well.

Well, there weren't any "American" ships to take deserters from before the Revolution...

As I understand history, the RN did that to everyone else's ships, military and civilian, but only took deserters from the RN. Was I misinformed?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[khagler]

robkelk wrote:

---

As I understand history, the RN did that to everyone else's ships, military and civilian, but only took deserters from the RN. Was I misinformed?

They took British subjects, not just deserters--and they considered Americans to be British subjects. Also, some of the people they took really were RN deserters, who had subsequently become US citizens--which they again didn't respect.
Note that in those days the Royal Navy "recruited" sailors by sending gangs of men ashore to find likely candidates, whack them over the head, and drag them back to the ship. The "deserters" were more like escaped kidnapping victims or runaway slaves. So, I'm not surprised that gets left out of history as taught in Canada. Sort of like the way US history classes tend to omit the US opportunists who used that dispute as an excuse to try and conquer Canada...

[Black Aeronaut]

In a ways you couldn't blame them. At the time, Canada was still very much a British territory and the British, in addition to supplying and arming non-friendly Native Americans, blockading trade between the US and France (granted the two countries were at war... as usual) and openly insulting the US for their seeming inability to protect their interests at sea.

To put this into perspective, this would be like China arming and supplying socialist radical groups in the US, blockading US trade routes to Asia, raiding US cargo ships and enslaving the sailors, and then the Chinese press proclaiming how inferior the US Navy was. How do you think the US as a whole would react?

But this is all digressing from the matter at hand.
EDIT: I decided to crunch some numbers just to see what perspective we should see our 'Standing Army' in.
I left out the Navy and the Coast Guard since you, khagler, deem them as necessary.  I only counted active duty personnel from the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps.
I then divided that number into the total population of the USA (Disclaimer: this figure is as of the 2012 Census).
The number I came up with... isn't all that impressive.
For every 288 civilians... we have a single, full time, active duty soldier/marine/airman.
So, sure.  We maintain a standing army.  And it seems impressive at first glance (just over 1 million men).  But then you look at the fact there's over 300 million US Citizens and then it most people, even foreigners, realize it's nothing special in relation to the size of our population.
But then, I guess that in your worldview that a standing army of even ten people is a bad thing.  And maybe, just maybe, in some alternate version of earth that doesn't have things like radical fundamentalists (of any stripe) we wouldn't need it.  But unfortunately, we do, so there you go.
Oh, and North Korea and Iran would absolutely love it if we disbanded our standing army.  Because with them would also go a vast majority of the support that the UN Peace Keeping Forces need.  Sure, things would be quiet for a while... until suddenly all of Isreal turns into a radioactive crater and Seoul and Tokyo cease to exist in any meaningful way.
So.... tell me why getting rid of our standing army is a good idea?

[khagler]

blackaeronaut wrote:

---

Blah, Blah, Blah.
So.... tell me why getting rid of our standing army is a good idea?

I've never really seen it said better than by John Quincy Adams:
http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/his ... olicy.html

[Foxboy]

Well, never forget that even if you somehow manage to get rid of the US Army, it won't stop Corporate Armies from forming in the "Oh hey, business! Go do what you want, you crazy kids!" atmosphere hidden in the Libertarian rhetoric propping up the Republican party.

Corporate Thug: *K-CHAK* My gun is better than yours. You work for Conglomerate Industries Now!
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[ECSNorway]

Something to keep in mind.

Most armies swear an oath of allegiance to their country's king, emperor, whatever.

In the US every officer swears, specifically, to "uphold and defend the Constitution, against all enemies foreign and domestic".

They take that oath very seriously. To the point where there is significant doubt among politicians about just where the Armed Forces would stand if a President or Congress tried to order them to be used to oppress the people.

The good money right now is on 90+% of them not only refusing the order, but a large proportion actively working against it.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[khagler]

Actually they don't take it seriously at all--if they even know what the Constitution says, that is.

Any politicians who were actually worried (not that I believe that) are no doubt relieved, though, by the total lack of soldiers showing up to defend the Constitution in Watertown, Massachusetts just days ago.

That's not to say that nobody who takes that oath ever honors it, it's just very rare, and when it does happen it tends to make the news and result in that soldier being court-martialed and kicked out. Examples that come to mind are Ehren Watada and Bradley Manning.

There's actually an organization made up of current and former military and police called the Oath Keepers--the name means that they would supposedly honor that oath. I'm aware of them because the founder of the organization was a regular on another Internet forum I used to frequent, and while I have considerable respect for him, I'm skeptical of the group as a whole--being a current soldier or cop is inherently incompatible with upholding and defending the Constitution. Anyone who tried (and it does happen occasionally) would only last a few months at most before getting kicked out.

[Valles]

So, just out of morbid curiosity, I checked through the site linked. The 'Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey' is... interesting.

#1's proximate cause is at least identifiable, although the supposed supporting logic of 'effective final recourse to arms' is wishful thinking in its purest and most futile form.

#2, to my even greater surprise, expresses support for a legal principle that has been under assault by the neoconservative bloc in the recent past, although, again, the reasoning for doing so is based off of a fundamental misunderstanding of the process of disarmament.

#3 is something that is not only legally reasonable but an active issue, and is genuinely worthwhile, although the idea that a government could conduct an 'act of war' against private citizens is as far as I know unsupportable and certainly outside the constitution's very specific definitions of treason. The 'militia movement' has de-facto criminal goals, of course, but they're rarely acted on, and in any case that does not deprive them of their right to due process.

#4 is completely out of left field. The closest thing I can think of to relevance is federally mandated desegregation, which, besides being a racist dogwhistle, is extensively supported by the Supreme Court.

#5 is, again, so directly against legal precedent that it's impossible for me to take as anything but more 'South Shall Rise Again' nonsense. Individual States explicitly have no such rights.

#6 is completely irrelevant to anything. Like, literally, I have no idea where they're getting this lunacy. The only Police State Walls I've seen suggested were to keep people out of the national borders.

#7 astonishes me. It is based on accurate historical information, it draws ethical conclusions... it is, in short, sane. Except for the part where no one has suggested anything of the sort in the last sixty-five years.

#8 is obviously some sort of anti-UN dogwhistle, but frankly, the idea of the United States Government needing anyone else's help on its own soil - at least, outside of things like importing earthquake recovery specialist teams from halfway across the world, which everybody does - is laughable.

#9 is another 'Okayyyyy... where did this come from?' bit. And...

...As long as the Westborough Baptists remain unlynched, the United States demonstrably maintains an order of magnitude more protection on the freedom of speech than the founders themselves would have imagined, and #10 is another 'admirable but irrelevant'.

And you're plugging these people?

Khagler, for your own safety and the safety of others, I must strongly recommend that you seek the help of a mental-health professional immediately.
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[khagler]

Valles wrote:

---

(Longwinded rant that amounts to "I agree with khagler and disagree with ECSNorway about soldiers taking their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution seriously, except I don't like the Constitution so I think that's a good thing.")

Khagler, for your own safety and the safety of others, I must strongly recommend that you seek the help of a mental-health professional immediately.

That was a standard Soviet tactic: proclaim that dissidents were insane and lock them up for "treatment." The US hasn't reached that point yet (no doubt to Valles' dismay), but it's definitely moving in that direction--which neatly brings us back to the original post of the thread.

[Bob Schroeck]

You know what? I'm stopping this right here before it goes anywhere.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.