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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clipka wrote:

> 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).

Sounds about right.

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

Um... Is this the same North America where seemingly even the police are 
not above harassing people who deny the Christian faith?

For example, the story about the little girl who wouldn't say the Lord's 
Prayer in class, and got expelled from school. Her dad said she 
shouldn't be forced to say the prayer, and soon the entire family found 
themselves being virtually driven out of the town. And then it ended up 
being a court case, I forget why...

Sounds like Britain in the Dark Ages to me. :-P

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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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clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:

>> 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).

We've been telling this, almost word for word, to our government for about
14 years now. No result. Again, there is no guarantee that the state will
always be "perfect" and behave in the way you describe. It is when states
fail, or become oppressive of the mass of their citizens (as the old
Apartheid state was towards black people) that those citizens
must -already- be armed and ready to defend themselves. Against the state,
if need be.
 
> 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.

Correct. As I keep moaning on about it - there is no way you can say that a
state or law enforcement system will forever more remain good and right and
benevolent. It is in the nature of government to take on more and more and
more power and responsibility, if it is not stopped at some point by an
angry citizenry. Sure you can say that you could stop that at the polls,
but that will only work if EVERYBODY respects democracy and its
institutions - a vote does not make an enemy uninterested in democracy stop
his unjust acts. If somebody does not oblige the democratic compact, and it
happens to be the state in the interplay of laws and obligations that is a
country, and the citizens are not capable of insurrection against the
unjust state (by being unarmed, as you are now in Germany), ethnic
cleansing and dictatorship ensues.
 
> 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.

Good points. It was interesting however, to note after the London
bus-bombings, how quickly the "iron fist" of massively armed police almost
everywhere was brought out of the "velvet glove" of the unarmed Joe Bobby
on patrol. Again, as you say, it only works because (up to now, apparently
this is changing) everybody understood and respected the law. So you could
probably afford to disarm your police, since the citizens were not armed.
Still, the lone armed criminal will be a nasty and fatal surprise to the
unarmed policeman or citizen - the citizen or policeman will promptly get
killed in that case. While an armed policeman or citizen might be able to
offer resistance.
 
> 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.

Hehe "somewhat tame" - I like that. Once again, the same refrain - you have
to decide what is "tame" and at what point it is "tame enough" to disarm
your citizens. Hitler and Stalin also decided what "tameness" level they
wanted out of their subjects, as did Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot, Galtieri,
Muamar Ghadaffi, the list of dictators goes on. I just think that
the "tameness" should never be decided by anybody. The citizen MUST remain
capable of armed resistance against the state, and of armed protection
against criminals. Take note that I'm referring to a RIGHT, not a duty. If
you do NOT want to have a weapon, or hate them, or whatever you opinion is,
DON'T BUY ONE! It is your right NOT to have it as well. But it is unjust to
DENY a right that is intrinsic to personal freedom of others, and of
peoples.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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