Any Good Arguments Against Gun-Control?

From the ezboard you cited:
Banning guns means more freedom
Click to expand...
I come from (and belong to) a reasonably long line of Americans that bought our freedom through proficiency with guns and other weapons. Hence I have no tolerance for the sort of sophistry that passes for argument on that particular board.

Those who haven't been willing to pay for freedom will never know its cost, and therefore will never really understand its definition. They may think they do, but they don't.

Dennis Bateman - a person who helped buy our freedom - explained the relationship between the private ownership of firearms and freedom as well as I have EVER heard it put in this thread.


Below is the particular post in question:

It is a rare person who does not attach some sort of value or emotion to some
physical object or to an event. A home becomes more than a building. A statue of
the Virgin Mary, a crucifix, a flag or a song, or even a photograph can stir
emotions greater than the value of the material item.

I have a piece of paper showing I served in the military until I was discharged
honorably. But, oh, the memories that piece of paper conjures up. The friends,
the fun times. The bad times. The times when we were bound closer to strangers
than to our own families and, in frightening chaos, our lives hung by a thread.
Many of our friends died far from home. Ask us about the feeling of “American
soil” upon returning to the land we loved. Ask those returning soldiers about
America.

Remember the old, faintly humorous band of American Legionnaires, wearing
out-dated military uniforms straining at the buttons. But, God how proudly they
marched. Grinning, waving to friends and families, and always, always “The Flag!” Ask them if the flag is mere cloth, I dare you.

See the elderly lady sitting in a lawn chair watching the fourth of July parade. Three flags carefully folded some forty years ago into triangles now rest in her lap - one for each lost son. Ask her if those flags are mere cloth, I dare you.

Look at the old man quietly crying, leaning against the Iwo Jiima Memorial at
Arlington Cemetery. As he turns to you, smiles with some embarrassment, and
says in a choked whisper, “I was there.” Ask him, “Is it just metal and clay?” Ask
him. I dare you.

The Wall. My God, the Wall. See the young man lightly tracing the name of his
father there inscribed. Ask him if its just rock. Ask him. I dare you.

My guns? They’re of little real value compared to my family and my home. They
are toys, or tools, or both. But what those guns represent to me is greater than all
of us, greater than myself, my family, indeed greater than our entire generation.
What could be of such value?

The freedom of man to live within civil, self-imposed limitations rather than under
restrictions placed upon him by a ruler or a ruling class.

Imagine the daring, the bravery of a few men to declare they intended to create a
new country, independent of the burden of their established Rulers!

Those men we call our forefathers were brilliant men. They could have
maneuvered themselves into positions of influence within the structure of the
times, but they did not. They struggled to free themselves from tyranny. They
wrote the Declaration of Independence. And they backed up their words and ideals with metal and wood.

They knew the dangers of such dreams and actions. They knew it was a frightening and dangerous venture into the unknown when they dared reach beyond their grasp for a vision - for an ideal. But they dared to dedicate
themselves to achieve Liberty and Freedom for their children, and their children’s
children, through the generations.

Imagine the dreams and yearnings of centuries finally being reduced to the written word. The Rights of “We the People!” instead of the “Powers of the Monarchy.”

Our forefathers dared to create a new government - a new form of government.
And they knew that any organization has, as its first and foremost goal, its
continued existence. Second only to that it strives to increase its power. It plots,
it devises, it maneuvers to achieve control over its environment - over its subjects.

Our Forefathers decided to make America different from any country, anywhere, at
any time in the entire history of the entire world. This country, this new nation of
immigrants, would be based upon the concept that people could rule themselves better than any single person or small group of persons could rule them.

Other countries have had outstanding documents with guarantees for its citizens -
but the citizens have become enslaved. How, these great men pondered, can we
ensure this new government will remain subject to the will of the People?

They wanted limits upon this new government. Therefore, our forefathers wrote
limitations into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And one of those Rights
was that metal and wood, as the final power of the people, would secure this country for the future generations.

Metal and wood were the means by which we won our freedom.
Metal and wood were the means by which we kept our freedom.
Metal and wood may be the means by which we regain our freedom.

Metal and wood are the final power of the people. Take away the metal and wood
and the people become powerless - they can only beg, they supplicate for favors.

We are unique in our ability to rule ourselves but we are letting it slip away.
Today we compromise. We try to appease man’s insatiable appetite for power by
throwing him bits of our freedoms. But the insatiable appetite for power can not
be appeased. The freedoms we feed him only make us weaker and him stronger. We must conquer him and again ensure the “Blessings of Liberty” won for us by our forefathers.

We must be ready to use metal and wood again, for if we are ready, truly ready,
we may be able to conquer the monster with words - for in its heart it is a coward.
But if we continue to feed the monster our freedoms, we will become too weak to
win, to weak even to fight, and we will become a conquered people. We will have
sold ourselves and our future generations into servitude.

If words fail us, we will use metal and wood, we will regain what we have lost, we
will achieve what we seek, we will guarantee the America of our forefathers for the future generations.

So you see, our guns are more than metal and wood. They are our heritage of freedom. They are the universally understood symbol that the government, no matter how big and strong it may be, answers to us! They are the tools we will use to prevent tyranny in the land of our forefathers and our children. So, ask me what my guns mean to me. Ask my children what our guns mean to them. Ask us. I dare you.
Click to expand...

My personal belief is that some people "get it", and that others never will. It will take someone with more patience than I could ever muster to argue the finer points with the latter.
 
One guy with a gun will occasionally shoot an unarmed victim.

A million guys with guns and matching uniforms will occasionally commit genocide on millions of unarmed victims.

I'll take my chances with the one guy, especially if I'm allowed to shoot back.
 
First off - get the term right - the term "gun control" is bogus and misleading - what people mean when they use that term is "gun freedom infringements" or "peasant control" because 'controlling' guns is about controlling the rank and file of a country, not anything else. It masquerades as somehow being related to crime control, even though every study ever conducted shows that the relationship is the opposite of what politicians would have you believe - yes gun rights infringements and crime are indeed correlated - proportionally, not inversely. The more gun rights infringements you have, the higher violent crime becomes. That's why Wash, D.C. and Chicago, IL, perennially have among the highest if not THE highest murder rate in the country - BECAUSE of their total hangun bans, not in spite of them.
 
Other than that it has never, anywhere achieved it's advertized goals, I guess not, except for the fact that it makes no sense whatever, gun control as usually offered/proposed that is.
 
A few basic ways to think about gun control

From a Gun Violence perspective
Ok, gun control is supposed to take the guns from the criminals that should not have them.
If they are a felon or have illegally obtained firearms, that is a serious crime.
Besides if they use the gun it is probably murder or attempted murder.

Those are the current laws that could be better enforced.

Anti-gun people say that the fact that all of that above is already illegal, they will make it more-illegal.

If you were to ban a weapon, you would pick the ones that are used the most by criminals, (handguns +60%)correct? Nope.. Sorry, if you are the Brady Campaign you will want a 10 year ban on guns used about 2% of the time by criminals. How is that supposed to do anything? Studys now show it did nothing, big surprise.

Total Ownership Ban
There are 2 big points missed by all in the anti-gun groups is that:
1. The reason for someone wanting to kill another does not go away by banning a gun. Humans are very good at finding other methods to kill.

2. If criminals who are not supposed to have guns now, yet still have them, then how will banning total ownership of guns deter a criminal who is already breaking the law? When he/she is captured the number of charges goes up by 2?
Great plan. The general population is now unarmed, and the criminals are armed with whatever they feel like carrying that day gun, knife, whatever... your victims are unarmed.

No one needs a gun like that
Someone somewhere has had a need at some point. But really we are generally talking about wants not needs.
Why would you want an assault rifle? To shoot.
Why would you want to play golf?

Golf you try to hit the ball into the cup.
Shooting you try to hit the center of the target.

Now why should I give up my favorite club because some nit whit killed somebody with the same type club 1000miles away?

Law abiding citizens use thier legal guns in law abiding ways. Criminals use illegal guns in illegal ways.
That is that same as saying lets ban guns, we dont trust our citizens with them so we will make them all illegal so only the criminals have access to them.

It is your right
You have the right to life, liberty and persuit of happiness.
Who is responsible for protecting that right?
You are.
It is your right to fight back to protect your life and liberty.
How effective will that right be if you are not allowed to own or carry a gun?
 
PeterV:

What about a responce on the posts above? Did they answer your questions? Or did you even want answers? not trying to flame, just curious.
 
Yes, I have the best argument against gun control.

Guns don't kill, thumbs do!

That's right, thumbs. People are tool makers and users because they have thumbs. Don't beleive me, try shooting a gun without using your thumb. See what I mean?

Felons who prove themselves to be violent and un-rehabilitatable should have both their thumbs removed before released back into society.

:D
 
There really doesn't need to be an argument against gun control. Those who wish to deny individuals the freedom to do anything that is not demonstrably harming others has the obligation to justify denying that freedom.

The fact that others may be misusing firearms does not in any way demonstrate that an individual is harming anyone--the others are causing the harm. Those that cause harm need to take the responsibility, not the innocent individual.

Most gun control laws are blanket policies that do not discriminate between individuals. They either intend to deny criminals the use of firearms or to deny everyone the use of firearms.

In the case of using a blanket law to deny criminals access to firearms the result is invariably that honest individuals are denied firearms, but criminals continue to have access in the same way that illegal drugs are available. These laws miss their goal completely.

In the case of a blanket law to deny the general population access to firearms lest individuals be involved in accidents, crimes, etc. they are asking the general population to carry the guilt of the few. This is an "assumed guilty" approach which conflicts with the US concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

Are we concerned that people have firearms or that they are commiting crimes? The crimes were there before firearms and will be there after. Being victim in a copy-cat beheading that those that happened after Middle Eastern thugs got noteriety for the practice is in no way more moral or less fatal than being shot.
 
Would you deny me a swimming pool, because someone MIGHT drown there?
Should I not own a car, because I MAY get drunk and kill someone else?
Should I not be able to have a computer, because I COULD release a virus causing billions of dollars of damage?

I don't NEED any of those. The only problem is that they are for some reason more 'needed' then guns.

Now:
Would you deny me a gun, because I MIGHT shoot someone?

Any sane person would say no to all four. BUT, to some people, guns should be banned. Why? Because they personally don't need them, and it makes them appear as they are doing something to help society.

Was there crime before guns? Yes. If you somehow made all guns disappear off the earth, would there still be crime? Yes.

Take out the cause, not the tool.
 
What are the best arguments against gun-control?

That it doesn't work. By any measurable data, it does not have it's desired effect (reducing crime with guns).
 
PeterV, . . .

Gun control is great stuff, should be practiced by one and all: just line up the white dot on the front of the barrel between the two white dots on the back of the barrel, . . . make em even across the top and put the center one dead center of your target. Begin letting off the trigger, . . .

BOOM! You have gun control.

Repeat until the gun goes "click". Reload from WalMart white box until empty, . . . go to WalMart for more, . . . spend your pizza money and not only will you have more fun but you will also lose a few pounds.

Practice till you get the hang of this real good, . . . then just remember that you are a free man: not a slave, not a servant, not a peasant, not a serf, but a free, . . . FREEEEEEE man as long as you own that sorry little piece of steel and wood/plastic.

When you fail to protect your privilege to own one: might just as well go get measured for the ball and chain, . . . its coming. An even sadder part of that though, . . . is when we who know fail to stand up, . . . it takes down everyone: including those who will never know what it truly is like to be free.

May God bless,
Dwight
 
All:

While firearms and the right of the law abiding thereto are most certainly significant, you all might take a moment to read the following and consider.

Walter Mitty's Second Amendment
by Jeff Snyder




Once upon a time, there was a people who inhabited a majestic land under an all-powerful government. Now this government had the resources to control practically every aspect of human existence; hundreds of thousands of "public servants" could access the most personal details of every citizen's life because everyone was issued a number at birth with which the government would track him throughout his life. No one could even work in gainful employment without this number.

True, the government left certain domains of individual action largely free, particularly matters concerning speech and sex. These activities posed no real threat to the state. When not used to entertain and divert, the power of speech was used principally to clamor for more or better goods from the state, or for "reforms" to make the state work "better," thereby entrenching the people's dependency. And insofar as sex was concerned, well, the people's behavior in this area also really had no effect on the scope of state power. In fact, the rulers noted that people's preoccupation with matters of sexual morality – whether premarital, teenage pregnancy, adultery, divorce, homosexuality or general "who's zooming who" – diverted the people's attention from the fact that they were, for economic and all other intents and purposes, slaves.

Slaves, though, who labored under the illusion that they were free. The people were a simple lot, politically speaking, and readily mistook the ability to give free reign to their appetites as the essence of "personal freedom."

In that fruitful land, the state took about 50 percent of everything the people earned through numerous forms of taxation, up from about 25 percent only a generation earlier. However, this boastful people, who believed themselves to be the freest on earth, retained the right to keep and bear arms. Tens of millions of them possessed firearms – just in case their government became tyrannical and enslaved them.

In that land, an astronomical number of regulations, filling more than 96,000 pages in the government's "code of regulations," were promulgated by persons who were not elected by the people. The regulators often developed close relationships with the businesses they regulated, and work in "agencies" that had the power both to make law – and to enforce it.

The agencies were not established by the government's constitution, and their existence violated that instrument's principle of separation of powers. Yet the people retained the right to keep and bear arms. Just in case their government, some day, ceased to be a "government of the people."

In that land, the constitution contemplated that the people would be governed by two separate levels of government – "national" and "local." Matters that concerned the people most intimately – health, education, welfare, crime, and the environment – were to be left almost exclusively to the local level, so that those who made and enforced the laws lived close to the people who were subject to the laws, and felt their effects.

So that different people who had different ideas about such things would not be subject to a "one size fits all" standard that would apply if the national government dealt with such matters. Competition among different localities for people, who could move freely from one place to another, would act as a reality check on the passage of unnecessary or unwise laws.

But in a time of great crisis called the Great Economic Downturn, the people and their leaders clamored for "national solutions to national problems," and the constitution was "interpreted" by the Majestic Court to permit the national government to pass laws regulating practically everything that had been reserved for the localities.

Now the people had the pleasure of being governed by not one, but two beneficent governments with two sets of laws regulating the same things. Now the people could be prosecuted by not one, but two governments for the same activities and conduct. Still this fiercely independent people retained the right to keep and bear arms. Just in case their government, some day, no longer secured the blessings of liberty to themselves or their posterity.

In that fair land, property owners could be held liable under the nation's environmental legislation for the cleanup costs associated with toxic chemicals, even if the owners had not caused the problem. Another set of laws provided for asset forfeiture and permitted government agencies to confiscate property without first establishing guilt.

Yet the people retained the right to keep and bear arms. Just in case their government denied them due process by holding them liable for things that were not their fault. (The Majestic Court had long ago determined that "due process" did not prevent government from imposing liability on people who were not at fault. "Due process," it turned out, meant little more than that a law had been passed in accordance with established procedures. You know, it was actually voted on, passed by a majority and signed by the president. If it met those standards, it didn't much matter what the law actually did.)

Oh well, the people had little real cause to worry. After all, those laws hardly ever affected anyone that they knew. Certainly not the people who mattered most of all: the country's favorite celebrities and sports teams, who so occupied the people's attention. And how bad could it be if it had not yet been the subject of a Movie of the Week, telling them what to think and how to feel about it?

In that wide-open land, the police often established roadblocks to check that the people's papers were in order. The police – armed agents of the rulers – used these occasions to ask the occupants whether they were carrying weapons or drugs. Sometimes the police would ask to search the vehicles, and the occupants – not knowing whether they could say no and wanting to prove that they were good guys by cooperating – would permit it.

The Majestic Court had pronounced these roadblocks and searches lawful on the novel theory, unknown to the country's Founding Forebears, that so long as the police were doing this to everyone equally, it didn't violate anyone's rights in particular.

The roadblocks sometimes caused annoying delays, but these lovers of the open road took it in stride. After all, they retained their right to keep and bear arms. Just in case their government, some day, engaged in unreasonable searches and seizures. In that bustling land, the choice of how to develop property was heavily regulated by local governments that often demanded fees or concessions for the privilege. That is, when the development was not prohibited outright by national "moistland" regulations that had no foundation in statutory or constitutional law.

Even home owners often required permission to simply build an addition to their homes, or to erect a tool shed on their so-called private property. And so it seemed that "private property" became, not a system protecting individual liberty, but a system which, while providing the illusion of ownership, actually just allocated and assigned government-mandated burdens and responsibilities.

Still, this mightily productive people believed themselves to live in the most capitalistic society on earth, a society dedicated to the protection of private property. And so they retained the right to keep and bear arms. Just in case their government ever sought to deprive them of their property without just compensation.

Besides, the people had little cause for alarm. Far from worrying about government control of their property, the more immediate problem was: what to buy next?

The people were a simple lot, politically speaking, and readily mistook the ability to acquire an endless assortment of consumer goods as the essence of personal freedom.

The enlightened rulers of this great land did not seek to deprive the people of their right to bear arms. Unlike tyrants of the past, they had learned that it was not necessary to disarm the masses. The people proved time and time again that they were willing accomplices to the ever-expanding authority of the government, enslaved by their own desire for safety, security and welfare.

The people could have their guns. What did the rulers care? They already possessed the complete obedience that they required.

In fact, in their more Machiavellian moments, the rulers could be heard to admit that permitting the people the right to keep and bear arms was a marvelous tool of social control, for it provided the people with the illusion of freedom.

The people, among the most highly regulated on earth, told themselves that they were free because they retained the means of revolt. Just in case things ever got really bad. No one, however, seemed to have too clear an idea what "really bad" really meant. The people accepted the fact that their government no longer even remotely resembled the plan set forth in their original constitution. And the people's values no longer remotely resembled those of their Founding Forebears. The people, in their naïveté, really believed that the means of revolt were to be found in a piece of inanimate metal! Really it was laughable. And pathetic.

End of Part 1. Please continue to Part 2
 
Continued from Part 1



No, the rulers knew that the people could safely be trusted with arms. The government educated their children, provided for their retirement in old age, bequeathed assistance if they lost their jobs, mandated that they receive health care, and even doled out food and shelter if they were poor.

The government was the very air the people breathed from childhood to the grave. Few could imagine, let alone desire, any other kind of world.

To the extent that the people paid any attention to their system of government, the great mass spent their days simply clamoring for more or better "programs," more "rational" regulations, in short, more of the same. The only thing that really upset them was waste, fraud, or abuse of the existing programs. Such shenanigans brought forth vehement protests demanding that the government provide their services more efficiently, dammit!

The nation's stirring national anthem, adopted long ago by men who fought for their liberty, ended by posing a question, in hopes of keeping the spirit of liberty alive. Did the flag still fly, it asked, over the land of the free? Unfortunately, few considered that the answer to that question might really be no, for they had long since lost an understanding of what freedom really is.

No, in this land "freedom" had become something dark, frightening, and dangerous. The people lived in mortal terror that somewhere, sometime, some individual might make a decision or embark upon a course of action that was not first approved by some government official.

Security was far more preferable. How could anyone be truly free if he were not first safe and protected?

Now we must say goodbye to this fair country whose government toiled tirelessly to create the safety, fairness and luxury that all demanded, and that everyone knew could be created by passing just the right laws. Through it all, the people vigorously safeguarded their tradition of firearms ownership.

But they never knew – and never learned – that preserving a tradition and a way of life is not the same as preserving liberty. And they never knew – and never learned – that it's not about guns.

October 18, 2004

Jeff Snyder [send him mail] is an attorney who works in Manhattan. He is the author of Nation of Cowards – Essays on the Ethics of Gun Control, which examines the American character as revealed by the gun control debate. His website is here. This article originally appeared in American Handgunner, Sep/Oct 1997.

Copyright © 1997 American Handgunner
 
I hate to break it to you but there are no good arguments "for" gun control.
Every argument for it is based on falicy.
Gun control is not about fighting crime.
Its about disarming law abiding civillians so that tyrants in authority can wield greater power over them. Thats why every tyrant from Hitler to Clinton pushes for Gun Control the minute they get into office.
Gun control is not about safety. Safety is what you do, not what you can buy.
The only argument "for" Gun Control that is not a fallicy is the logical one — "I want to disarm the law abiding citizens so that they will be forced to rely upon the state for protection and so they will have no recourse to fall back upon in the attempt that my tyranny causes a revolution."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top