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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SharkD schrieb:
> 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.

Yes, I think this case pretty much makes a point.

If the mere /presence/ of guns - especially the presence of /big/ guns 
(which I guess the rifle industry doesn't get tired to emphasize) - 
would be any help in stopping a gun-wielding blown-fuse berserker's amok 
run, then that guy should have been downed in seconds flat.

If /everyone/ is carrying a gun around, then the first reaction to 
someone drawing one is probably "gee, what's happening here? Is there 
any danger? Damn, this is serious - he's having a real firefight with 
those guys over there! Man, if only I knew who's the good guys here!", 
rather than "*OH SHIT, HE'S GOT A GUN! HE'S GONNA KILL US ALL! DUCK AND 
COVER! RUN! GET THE FREAKIN' HELL OUTTA HERE!!*"

Which is probably just why that guy had time to kill 13 people before 
anyone came to wits, identified him as an aggressor, and managed to take 
him out.

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Invisible wrote:

> 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.

I agree.
 
>> 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

Tee hee hee! Naw... they didn't burn the child and her family at the stake
for apostasy. But stay tuned, who knows what may come out of the Deep
South...?
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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clipka wrote:

> >> 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.
> 
> Yes, I think this case pretty much makes a point.
> 
> If the mere /presence/ of guns - especially the presence of /big/ guns
> (which I guess the rifle industry doesn't get tired to emphasize) -
> would be any help in stopping a gun-wielding blown-fuse berserker's amok
> run, then that guy should have been downed in seconds flat.

Have any of you guys been in the military? It seems to be a common
misconception that a military base is awash in guns. In my albeit limited
experience of the old SADF, this was NOT the case, and neither does it seem
to be the case with the US Army at Fort Hood. Besides gate guards (in a
civilian setting, compare to an armed policeman on patrol) and sentries,
MOST people on a military base in "peacetime" are -not- armed. In a well
disciplined force, weapons are held in a central storage location. If
troops on base DO have LOADED weapons (UNLOADED ones are much more common -
for training and drill) they are usually on the way to an operation, or
coming back in. Properly trained soldiers will also NEVER just fire back,
if fired upon - it depends on what orders they have been given. Granted, a
soldier that has got no orders might just take cover, instead of
automatically returning fire. I vividly remember how it was hammered into
our skulls, over and over until I could VOMIT with it, that you NEVER fire
without clear orders, a clear target, and when you know what is BEHIND your
target. The sequence was always "wait for my command" - especially if you
had loaded weapons and a properly trained officer.

A civilian might have been of more use, not subject to military discipline
or trained to wait for orders - he'd have had to use his own judgement,
which is often VERY badly regarded in most armies. You do what you are
told. If you are not told to do something, you don't do it.

> Which is probably just why that guy had time to kill 13 people before
> anyone came to wits, identified him as an aggressor, and managed to take
> him out.

Or they had to wait until they could get hold of somebody with a LOADED
weapon, ready to fire. And then that person too, if properly trained, would
have first made an assessment and not just blindly started firing back,
which can cause just as much harm.

Incidentally, this has happened twice here in SA where a subordinate shot
his commanding officer, on a military base, mostly over racial tensions. In
one situation the murderer wasn't shot, for the same reason the American
officer wasn't shot - nobody had a loaded weapon at hand. In the other
occasion, a gate guard (if I remember right) shot the perpetrator.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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> I vividly remember how it was hammered into
> our skulls, over and over until I could VOMIT with it, that you NEVER fire
> without clear orders, a clear target, and when you know what is BEHIND 
> your
> target.
...
> And then that person too, if properly trained, would
> have first made an assessment and not just blindly started firing back,
> which can cause just as much harm.

A very good example of why people who are not continuously trained should 
not be allowed to have guns.

Can you imagine someone trained in firing guns doing this?:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7091904.stm

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scott wrote:

>> I vividly remember how it was hammered into
>> our skulls, over and over until I could VOMIT with it, that you NEVER
>> fire without clear orders, a clear target, and when you know what is
>> BEHIND your
>> target.
> ...
>> And then that person too, if properly trained, would
>> have first made an assessment and not just blindly started firing back,
>> which can cause just as much harm.
> 
> A very good example of why people who are not continuously trained should
> not be allowed to have guns.

Which is a requirement here for ownership. You have to be shown to have
regularly gone shooting with your firearm (there is a register at every
shooting range you must sign), and you have to pass a training course at an
accredited training facility here to be allowed to have possesion of a
firearm.
 
> Can you imagine someone trained in firing guns doing this?:
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7091904.stm

You can't fix stupid. Its like a guy I once turned out to who has working on
his car after jacking it up and placing plastic milk-bottle crates as
supports. No surprise, the car fell of the braces he put up and squashed
his head literally as flat as pancake. If you're stupid, you can injure
youself with an ice cream cone! :)
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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On 11/6/2009 11:24 AM, Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> A civilian might have been of more use, not subject to military discipline
> or trained to wait for orders - he'd have had to use his own judgement,
> which is often VERY badly regarded in most armies. You do what you are
> told. If you are not told to do something, you don't do it.

LOL

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somebody wrote:
> had the other people had guns as well, 

I don't think the doctors and nurses carry their rifles with them on a base 
on US soil in the hospital.

What's your alternative to shooting back at such a person? :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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