clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
> 
>> Here (in South Africa) the week before last and the one before that,
.
.
. 
> I don't think the situations can be compared in any way.

You're correct. As you state below, Germany is a completely different place
(I see your soccer team is being advised to wear bulletproof vests when it
comes here next year! A bit extreme I'd say... an over reaction). It is not
THAT dangerous, but Bayern Sekur (I think that's what your soccer team's
security company is called) clearly doesn't have local knowledge. If you
keep aware of what is going on around you, and get out of most city centers
here before nightfall (and DON'T venture into squatter areas, or got to
a "shebeen" - pub) you should be OK. 
 
> In "Wild West" times, the situation was possibly somewhat similar in the
> US. Nowadays, they appear to have a working law enforcement system,
> which should reduce the need for personal firearms. (After all, that's
> exactly their job, isn't it?)

You are correct, but my opinion about it differs, methinks. How do you
define a "working" law enforcement system? And when does the law
enforcement system get itself a "conscience" when it comes to unjust laws
that it must enforce? The police is the servant of the state - it does what
the state tells it to do. There is NO guarantee that the state will always
have your rights and safety as its primary concern. A state wants to
safeguard and perpetuate its power (look at Communist Russia, for example,
or Robert Mugabe's government of Zimbabwe). Interestingly, one of the very
first things Mr. Mugabe did when coming to power in 1980 was to make all
private firearms illegal. Once the citizenry was disarmed, he got Korean
training and assistance for his Army, and then proceeded to murder tens of
thousands of members of the Zimbabwean Matabele tribe (Mugabe is a Shona).
 
Surely no country on earth has a policeman for every citizen, every hour of
every day? That is where a citizen must take responsibility for himself. I
find it completely anathema to completely depend for physical security on
the state - you MUST take -personal- responsibility for yourself too,
BEYOND what the state can, or will do for you.

>> then there can be no possibility that his law-abiding targets will be
>> able to defend themselves.
> 
> Here in Germany, we live quite safe, despite(?) private gun ownership
> being  subject to severe restrictions, and being far from common.

Granted, but then again Germany is a highly-advanced, first world country,
with world-class social services, extremely low unemployment (compared to
SA, for example), an very homogenuous population both racially and
culturally,  and a deeply entrenched respect for human life. I can
understand how, in such a society, it is not necessary to have firearms and
be ready to defend yourself and your family. But as you say above, a
comparison is difficult to make.

Again, it begs the question - will Germany ALWAYS stay like that? Will it
for ever and ever be a country with efficient police, courts, excellent
social support structures and infrastructure, etc? That is what the
drafters of the United States' 2nd Amendment to the constitution were on
about - the only guarantee that such a state is not misused for oppression
of one group or people, some time during its existence, is when ALL the
people take personal responsibility for such a state of affairs to
continue. Germany has a duly constituted army to protect the German state
and interests. Those old geezers who wrote the US constitution decided that
each free man should have that same capability on a personal level, and
thus should have weapons.
 
> I guess the situation in the US is closer to Germany than to South
> Africa. I do concede that in a country where gun ownership restrictions
> cannot be enforced successfully, any restriction to gun ownership will
> only hurt the law-abiding. But is the US such a country?

Hmm... you make a good point. I'm not sure, maybe they are not? I've
referred to them mostly since they are unique in the sense that a "right to
arms" is in their very constitution, and the citizenry are enjoined to have
a personal conviction and responsibility for the freedoms they enjoy.
Having access to weapons written into the core document of their
nationhood, and freedom is associated, in writing, with being armed and
with being capable of deterring oppression with violence. I think the
result is quite good on a global level, and worked out well for them.

Additionally, you have to define what is "successful enforcement" - one
illegal gun missed by the police can be pretty fatal for the citizen who
gets shot with it (and is not able to defend himself because he is not
allowed to have one of his own.)
 
>> Yet no Columbine or Dunblane shooting -ever- happened then. Which makes
>> me wonder about the arguments against civilian firearm ownership.
> 
> I dare to ask how many shootings of black people committed by white ones
> happened during that time.

Good point. You are suggesting (if I read in context with your statements
below) that ethnic unity was a factor? The "common enemy" idea which Hitler
used to such good effect?
 
> In a society where there is a consensus about a common "enemy", it is
> easy to address any aggression against "the others" instead of your
> fellow people.

See above. You may have a large element of truth here. I did not think about
it like that.
 
> American society does not have such a common enemy, so a person under
> strong diffuse psychological pressure will, in a desperate attempt to
> "defend" against it, just kill any random target.

Ok, that makes sense. Still, for me, it does NOT make sense to say that the
rational, 99% segment of your society who are law-abiding, should be FORCED
(as you are in Germany) to -completely- depend on a state funded and run
police force for their safety, IF such a person decides to target them in a
killing or shooting spree.

As I referred to in my Mark Steyn vignette to Invisible, in the EU mostly
you might WANT to have a weapon, but you CANNOT. In the United States you
mostly can, as many as you might want, even automatic ones in certain
states or principalities. This, to me at least, is being "more free" than
if you are a citizen of the EU, and it is decided FOR you what you may, and
may not own, or do.
 
> In a society where the blacks are the bad guys, a person under similar
> diffuse psychological pressure will blame it on the blacks, and have at
> them. And nobody will bother because all he killed were some of "the
> others". And he may not even go as far as to kill, because he can just
> kick a black ass anytime he feels like letting off steam, and all his
> fellows will pat him on the back for it.

This is blatantly not true. Sure this did happen, but it is just like the
criminal / law abiding element comparison, or the "any guy who likes guns
is crazy, and a potential murderer" argument referred to in my other posts.
Being an Afrikaner in apartheid South Africa didn't mean by default you'd
go and kill blacks because you "could" - if you tried it you'd get arrested
and processed, and hung (we still had the death penalty then) like any
other murderer. Blacks weren't hated, or considered the "bad guys". (At
least, I certainly was never taught that, not in any state school - the
propaganda was more against communism, pro-Christianity and the "Total
Threat") - very little at all was said about black people. Sure you did get
your trailer trash whites and crazies, who did do things you refer to. But
in the mean, at least among whites, the paradigm remains - everybody was
armed with stuff capable of causing mass death, quickly - but at least
among that group, NOTHING every happened. Nobody took it into their minds
to go and do a school shooting with the military weapons they had close at
hand - which was my original argument. Weapons, or the presence thereof, I
think, does not "stimulate" anyone to become a mass murderer or school
shooter. That happens elsewhere, and it is grossly unjust to disarm 99.9%
of the firearm owning public, because one person in a decade decides to go
crazy and shoot innocent people.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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