SharkD wrote:

> On 11/6/2009 7:26 AM, Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>> If you legislate against a basic human right -
>> that of self defense - by abolishing private gun ownership, you merely
>> disarm the law-abiding. No criminal will suddenly obey a new law that
>> says nobody may have guns. And his "job" gets even easier - because then
>> there can be no possibility that his law-abiding targets will be able to
>> defend themselves.
> 
> Law-abiding South Africans don't have a very good record when it comes
> to human rights, either.

Hmm... human rights. There's a strong undercurrent here against
so-called "human rights." It is -REALLY- not a concept that is very popular
here, or ever was very popular anywhere in Africa. Human rights is very
much a Western and European secular concept, devised in a completely
different environment and at a level of societal sophistication that is
completely and totally absent in South Africa and the rest of the
continent.

A very commonly held position about human rights here (among all races,
black and white) is that human rights is merely a shield for criminals to
hide behind. Many criminals have gotten parole here or been released on
humane grounds, only to rape and kill once more. You'll mostly find
air-headed journalists, deluded rights advocates, career criminals and
government functionaries (who have 24/7 bodyguards and live in armored,
guarded fortresses) here blabbing about human rights and the liberal
constitution and all such kinds of claptrap. Practically, on the ground in
South Africa, human rights do not exist. It still classic Africa here - you
get what you grab, and if you are stronger than somebody and you want
something of his, you simply TAKE it. (And hopefully rape his old lady and
his daughters in the process.)

Exactly -because- your "human rights" are not respected in Africa, you need
to have arms and be capable of defending yourself. Somebody or some
organization that infringes on those rights are putting you, and your
family in direct danger.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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SharkD wrote:

> On 11/6/2009 7:01 AM, somebody wrote:
>> When someone goes on a rampage in a civilian setting, gun nuts are quick
>> to point out that had the other people had guns as well, the shooter
>> would have been stopped before he could inflict any serious damage. I
>> wonder about their angle now.
> 
> Exactly.
> 
> And, since the death toll was fairly similar to previous attacks, one
> might believe that the effects of large numbers of guns on either side
> are in effect canceling each other out. So, what's the difference? The
> gun companies are getting richer.

The difference here might be that even on a military base, not all personnel
are armed all the time. During my time in the military, when on base, you
were usually just armed when going out on a patrol, returning, or on guard
duty. This meant that you could have 400 or 500 guys, and maybe five or six
may be armed at any one time, AND have ammunition. The situation can be
considered to be no different from a civilian situation where only the
perpetrator is armed, and the "gun nuts" have their argument predicated on
this. In this case, from what I read on CNN, a lone, armed, military member
did return fire and stopped the perpetrator, who wasn't killed.

Thus the argument that "if everybody was armed, it would have turned out
differently" still holds true. Merely being a soldier on a military base
doesn't necessarily mean you are armed, no more than being a civilian in a
country that allows citizens private firearms means you are armed at any
given moment.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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On 11/6/2009 9:03 AM, Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> A very commonly held position about human rights here (among all races,
> black and white) is that human rights is merely a shield for criminals to
> hide behind. Many criminals have gotten parole here or been released on
> humane grounds, only to rape and kill once more. You'll mostly find
> air-headed journalists, deluded rights advocates, career criminals and
> government functionaries (who have 24/7 bodyguards and live in armored,
> guarded fortresses) here blabbing about human rights and the liberal
> constitution and all such kinds of claptrap. Practically, on the ground in
> South Africa, human rights do not exist. It still classic Africa here - you
> get what you grab, and if you are stronger than somebody and you want
> something of his, you simply TAKE it. (And hopefully rape his old lady and
> his daughters in the process.)

In that case, the "human right" of self-defense is also not important, 
since it only shields criminals.

Mike

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On 11/6/2009 9:15 AM, Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> This meant that you could have 400 or 500 guys, and maybe five or six
> may be armed at any one time, AND have ammunition.

This is still a lot more than the average office complex or neighborhood 
school. Hence the "arms race" where the number of guns is increasing.

Mike

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Invisible wrote:

>>> It seems we agree on something.
>> 
>> Tee hee hee! Well at least we're having a reasonably civilized discourse.
>> If this was Africa I'd have long since burned down your house, castrated
>> you and then eaten your granny.
> 
> [Insert joke here about burrying meat and eating it once it's rotten.]

s'true! When I still was in the fire brigade here (I was the local
equivalent of a 911 dispatcher) I once had to dispatch an ambulance to a
guy who shot his brother over a R1 coin (i. e. he killed his brother for
about 10p). Another time some old geezer raped a 3 year old girl 'cause the
witchdoctor told him it would cure him of AIDS - not only that, he then set
fire to her to try and "hide the crime" - burning her to death. So my
remarks are really, really not far from the mark (for Africa).
 
>>>> criminals are by definition NOT law
>>>> abiding... so would making a law against firearm ownership disarm the
>>>> criminals?
>>> Because if guns are illegal, it makes it that much harder to get hold of
>>> them. Not impossible, surely, but very much harder.
>> 
>> You're right of course, but only partially I think. That's the whole
>> problem - this "quarantine" paradigm cannot be guaranteed. There's no

> If your police force is corrupt, then yeah, you probably need guns...

That's the whole point. There is no guarantee that in any given country in
the world, this kind of situation cannot come into being, by whatever
means. If it comes into being while citizens are armed, they at least have
recourse to arms to protect their lives and freedoms from a blatantly
unjust and / or corrupt oppressor.

This is why the United States constitution has the much quoted, maligned,
fiercely debated, hated, passionately loved Second Amendment or so
called "right to bear arms". The drafters of that amendment understood that
freedoms are fragile, and can never be entrusted to a government's care -
it must be each and every citizen's personal responsibility. Logically,
each and every citizen, if he has personal responsibility for his own
liberty, must be armed in order to defend that liberty against any
conceivable oppression of it.

What would the recourse be of British citizens, for example, if your
government slowly, by degrees, enacted new, oppressive laws (take a look at
the BNP, for example...!) so that at the end of the process it is illegal
for a British Citizen of Pakistani descent (or those who even LOOK
Pakistani!) to live in certain areas (for a start), and maybe later not
being allowed to work, or own his own business...? And later being expelled
from the UK or interned, or eventually put into a gas chamber?

It happened in Germany, Italy, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Russia, Argentina,
Rwanda, the Congo... and its called ethnic cleansing.

Surely you'll say that will never ever happen. But -WHY- will it never
happen? If somebody is not interested in talk or debate, HOW do you change
his mind, or defend your way of life if it doesn't happen to suit him,
you've got the wrong color of skin or eyes, or whatever? What is the
absolutely -final-, backs-to-the-wall guarantee that you can keep living as
you have lived, and that you still have the basic freedoms you enjoy? On
what basis is the preservation of your liberties and freedoms built?

In the United States, this base is that there are millions and millions of
guns in private hands that can conceivably be used against an unjust or
oppressive state or federal government in an insurrection or secession.

Armed citizens give a government (or an invader) pause. Or a corrupt police
force. 
 
> I guess the key is to not have a corrupt police force.
> 
> It's worth remembering that firing a gun makes a hell of a lot of noise,
> and it likely to attract attention to you real quickly.

True. But the mere presence of weapons can often times defuse a situation to
such a degree that actually firing a shot is not needed. This happened to
me once or twice, and if I had NOT had a weapon, things might have been
very different. Being clearly and capably ready, and armed, can have a
deleterious effect on somebody who means to do you harm.

>> "gun nut", a severe danger to society and can't wait to shoot the
>> neighbours' little 3 year old girl.
> 
> I don't think all people who want guns are automatically crazy.
> (Although I think plenty of crazy people want to own guns.) I just don't
> think owning a gun should be necessary.

In a perfect world it would not be. But the world isn't perfect. It is a
inalienable fact that there will always be people who mean ill to others,
or who want to take, and kill, and rape. There will always be politicians
who eye absolute power, no matter how "democratic" their countries are
supposed to be. As long as people remain people, there will be
acquisitiveness, envy, hate, religious jihad, etc. And there will always be
weapons - hopefully in the hands of law-abiding citizens as well, vs. just
in the hands of criminals.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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SharkD wrote:

>> - you get what you grab, and if you are stronger than somebody and you
>> want something of his, you simply TAKE it. (And hopefully rape his old
>> lady and his daughters in the process.)
> 
> In that case, the "human right" of self-defense is also not important,
> since it only shields criminals.

:)

You spotted the gap! Self-defence is explicitly NOT a right in the South
African constitution. As far as I'm aware it isn't a human right in most of
the world's so-called democracies either - except maybe an "implied" right
vs. the 2nd Amendment to the US constitution.

Nevertheless, self-defence -should- be a "human right" IMO.

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Stefan Viljoen escreveu:
> Where it is the norm, in the country with the highest murder rate on earth,
> that most house invasions include torture by branding, rape, evisceration,
> vaginal impalement of females, murder of babies and children, etc. - there
> is simply NO way that citizens CANNOT be armed.
> 
> Robbers, looters, rapists and murderers are criminals - by definition they
> do not abide by the law. If you legislate against a basic human right -
> that of self defense - by abolishing private gun ownership, you merely
> disarm the law-abiding. No criminal will suddenly obey a new law that says
> nobody may have guns. And his "job" gets even easier - because then there
> can be no possibility that his law-abiding targets will be able to defend
> themselves.
> 
> I do believe an armed society is a safe society. I grew up in apartheid
> South Africa, were 90%+ of all Afrikaner households had fully automatic
> military assault rifles (FN FAL's in the late 80's, IMI Galil equivalents
> in the early 90's) in the house, with ready ammunition (just like it used
> to be in Switzerland). These were provided to reservists of the South
> African Defence Force (or so called "Commandos") - in which all white males
> were compelled to serve. This was true from the early 70's right up to
> 1994. Yet never have I been able to find one incident where a schoolgoing
> boy from that era took his dad's machine gun to school and shot all the
> teachers and other children. And that was in a militarized society, with
> constant threats and propaganda being forced into your brain each day about
> how dangerous the world is, how aggressive you must be, how wonderful a
> system apartheid was and how worthy of defense to the last drop of blood,
> etc.
> 
> Yet no Columbine or Dunblane shooting -ever- happened then. Which makes me
> wonder about the arguments against civilian firearm ownership. 
> 
> The basic fact remains that an unarmed man may be attacked with more
> confidence than an armed man - and no government, ever, should have the
> power to deny its citizens the most basic human right - to self defense and
> survival. 

That was so friggin' insightful.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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SharkD wrote:

> On 11/6/2009 9:15 AM, Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>> This meant that you could have 400 or 500 guys, and maybe five or six
>> may be armed at any one time, AND have ammunition.
> 
> This is still a lot more than the average office complex or neighborhood
> school. Hence the "arms race" where the number of guns is increasing.
> 
> Mike

Ok, I see your point there - my argument sucks as regards that particular
illustration. An arms race is of course taking place, and the people making
the guns benefit, and it is to their advantage to sell more and more of
them.

But what is the difference between making guns, and making medicine? Either
serve a purpose or fills a need. You could probably say there is no
comparison, since guns kill people and medicine heals people. That's the
old hackneyed "guns don't kill people, people do". Misuse medicine and it
could kill or make you sick. Same with firearms. Misuse it and it could get
you killed.

What do you think about the nuclear arms race then? It was on a different
scale of course, but the fact that the "West" (the United States and its
allies) had thousands of nukes and the "East" (Russia and its allies) had
thousands of nukes, lead to a long period of relative peace and stability
between nation states that could have conceivable obliterated mankind, if
they ever warred. Both sides knew complete and utter destruction was
ensured, so both sides went to considerable lengths NOT to get embroiled in
conflict.

Doesn't this compare to the private citizen having automatic firearms, if
the criminal who wants to steal from and murder him have automatic
firearms?

Or what do you consider proportional if you find the argument above
specious?
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Stefan Viljoen schrieb:

> Here (in South Africa) the week before last and the one before that,
> incidents were reported where citizens with private firearms used them in
> self defense. In two cases the alleged criminals were killed and no
> law-abiding citizens were harmed. In one other case a robbery was prevented
> (alleged robber wounded and critical) and in yet another an alleged armed
> robber was stopped but the defending citizen killed (his family survived
> though.)
> 
> Where it is the norm, in the country with the highest murder rate on earth,
> that most house invasions include torture by branding, rape, evisceration,
> vaginal impalement of females, murder of babies and children, etc. - there
> is simply NO way that citizens CANNOT be armed.

I don't think the situations can be compared in any way.

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?)

> Robbers, looters, rapists and murderers are criminals - by definition they
> do not abide by the law. If you legislate against a basic human right -
> that of self defense - by abolishing private gun ownership, you merely
> disarm the law-abiding. No criminal will suddenly obey a new law that says
> nobody may have guns. And his "job" gets even easier - because 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.

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?

> I do believe an armed society is a safe society. I grew up in apartheid
> South Africa, were 90%+ of all Afrikaner households had fully automatic
> military assault rifles (FN FAL's in the late 80's, IMI Galil equivalents
> in the early 90's) in the house, with ready ammunition (just like it used
> to be in Switzerland). These were provided to reservists of the South
> African Defence Force (or so called "Commandos") - in which all white males
> were compelled to serve. This was true from the early 70's right up to
> 1994. Yet never have I been able to find one incident where a schoolgoing
> boy from that era took his dad's machine gun to school and shot all the
> teachers and other children. And that was in a militarized society, with
> constant threats and propaganda being forced into your brain each day about
> how dangerous the world is, how aggressive you must be, how wonderful a
> system apartheid was and how worthy of defense to the last drop of blood,
> etc.
> 
> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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Stefan Viljoen schrieb:

> Of course our society isn't safe - while the government is constantly
> enacting stricter and stricter gun ownership, background checks and
> purchasing laws. Thousands of legally owned, privately held firearms have
> been handed back to the SA government. Contrary to various arguments, this
> intensive disarming of society has not curbed gun crime - quite the
> opposite. More people are getting killed with firearms now, of all races,
> than the times in my country when you could almost guarantee that if you
> have a house, and there is an adult white male there, there WILL very
> likely be fully automatic weapons and ammunition... and he'll know how to
> use them.

Of course that's doing it wrong: You have to /first/ establish a 
comparatively safe society, by addressing crime arising out of habit or 
dire need (the former by force and punishment, the latter by trying to 
improve the economic situation), and /then/ take away privately owned 
guns to reduce the acts (or the lethality thereof) of spontaneous "blown 
fuse" type violence (or accidents).

I think gun restrictions can effectively prevent the latter, as well as 
helping to reduce the costs of a /functioning/ law enforcement system. 
With a /non-functioning/ law enforcement system, however, they only make 
matters worse.

> I know bobbies are unarmed, but surely you're aware of what's called in
> quaint British terms "Armed Police"? As far as I know, London apparently 
> has fifty or so "Armed Police" vehicles on duty at any one time. The police
> officers who crew these are very definitely armed, and they are deployed in
> such a way that they can reach any area of the metropolitan whole of the
> city in minutes. So the police aren't "unarmed" as a whole, even in
> Britain...

But as you can see they can get away with quite a low level of armament 
/even/ in the police force. Which I guess is /only/ possible due to 
severe restrictions on privately owned weapons. Which in turn date back 
long ago, to times when the law /was/ enforced primarily by armed men, 
who helped sort of "tame" society.


South Africa isn't "tame" at present, and that's why it wouldn't work 
there yet. Great Britain got there over some hundred years of time.

North America, OTOH, /is/ a somewhat tame society by now.

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