NcongruNt wrote:I am sometimes surprised at the people I know who are avid hunters who are offended at the idea of defensive or carry guns.
There is a whole spectrum of these people: Hunters and skeet shooters who don't see the need for any type of firearm other than the one they use. Cops who are opposed to the RKBA and particular CHLs. I know veterans who say things like, "Nobody needs a gun in civilian life."
I can't explain it. I just thought I would throw it out for discussion and avoid thread drift in the other topic.
NcongruNt wrote:It is an interesting turn of events however, that this friend has changed his tune on the subject since the elections and talk of new gun bans. He's asked me about purchasing defensive firearms, even the evil black guns he previously saw no use for...
I find it deliciously ironic that talk of a ban is causing people who never owned a firearm to buy one, and causing people who already shoot to buy more and stock up on ammunition.
The threat of making something illegal makes many people want it. It's as simple as that. I had a friend visit from Chicago, and he was drooling like Pavlov's dog over my very modest collection.
seamusTX wrote:Branched from Subject: How private do you keep your CHL status?The threat of making something illegal makes many people want it. It's as simple as that. I had a friend visit from Chicago, and he was drooling like Pavlov's dog over my very modest collection.
- Jim
My parents were smart, they never told me I couldn't date That Girl. because if they had, I wouldn't have grown tired of her, I would have wanted what I couldn't have!
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945This is what is ment when the NRA (and others) use the term: "Camel's nose under the tent"
We can not have 1/2 or even 3/4 of a "RIGHT". It is a all or nothing kind of thing. All gun control efforts over the last 75 years have the goal in there FINAL STAGE the removal of all guns from anyone who is not an agent of the goverment.
We have allready lost the true meaning of the 2nd admendment, as evidenced by the Heller decision where WE all cheered because 5 out of 9 en on the highest court in the land gave our side PARTIAL victory. A victory that can be removed by the same court at any time in the future.
ALL gun owners will be "hung from the same tree" if we don't stand together. I don't own a so called "assualt rifle", however I will fight to defend the second admendment that insures your RIGHT to own one.
I find it quite sad that many liberals will fight for a child pornographers' right to free speech, showing they indeed understand the "camel's nose under the tent" thing, but don't get it in regards to guns.
It makes me quite frustrated.
.השואה... לעולם לא עוד
Holocaust... Never Again.
Some people create their own storms and get upset when it rains.
--anonymous
More than the political aspect of banning guns, I find the the reactions to guns to be more interesting. There seems to be a large number of people who are not gun owners, nor are they anti-gun, however they would be alarmed at the sight of one, or the talk of carrying one around. I think these people could be swayed to "our" side easily enough, and when push came to shove, they would be supporters of the 2nd. However, a negative experience with guns or gun people could just as easily sway their opinion in another direction. This is why I think open-carry is a Bad Idea(tm).
I guess what I'm saying is that non-shooters, and people who don't own any guns or grow up around them need to be gently introduced to the concepts that we take for granted.
nitrogen wrote:I find it quite sad that many liberals will fight for a child pornographers' right to free speech, showing they indeed understand the "camel's nose under the tent" thing, but don't get it in regards to guns.
There is an argument in this direction, which you may be able to use.
The reason that people want to control or ban weapons is that weapons can cause immediate and often fatal harm.
They ignore the fact that weapons prevent more harm than they cause. This is true on an individual scale and a worldwide scale.
If the Allies had not fought the Axis in WWII with every weapon available, the world would be a very different place now.
Speech and the press do not cause immediate and fatal harm, but ultimately they have killed more people throughout history than random violence. Hitler fought in WWI. After that, he never used a weapon (until his suicide) or directly caused the death of a single person. He just wrote and made speeches.
So-called liberals are fond of saying that the answer to bad speech is more speech. Well, the answer to unlawful use of weapons is lawful use of weapons. This principle was recognized through all of Anglo-Saxon and English common law and was incorporated into American law.
The Second Amendment was written and ratified by real liberals. We have to get back there.
I haven't encountered any hunters who oppose concealed carry yet (some just don't care or see the need in their lives), but I don't doubt they exist. What I do find regularly are gun owners and even CHL holders who've fallen for the "reasonable restriction" propaganda. It's a ruse of course; "give 'em a little and maybe they won't take it all." Yea, right. Offering any new restrictions to the antis is like offering your toe to a shark.
Common sense is not common practice.
NRA Benefactor, TSRA life member.
seamusTX wrote:Speech and the press do not cause immediate and fatal harm, but ultimately they have killed more people throughout history than random violence. Hitler fought in WWI. After that, he never used a weapon (until his suicide) or directly caused the death of a single person. He just wrote and made speeches.
We understand your point but...
Hitler never saw front line combat as he was a courier. He was wounded by an artillery shell which resulted in him being awarded an Iron Cross, the equivalent of a Purple Heart. This was his only medal and is why in the famous picture of him greeting Paul Von Hindenburg that Hitler chose to wear civilian clothes so he wouldn't look impotent next to the decorated war hero.
Hitler indeed was directly responsible for the deaths of individuals as his direct orders resulted in executions of specific individuals and in some cases retaliatory slaughter of entire villages. It is unlikely that Himmler's retaliation for the Heydrich assassination was without Hitler's blessing.
I completely agree with your comments on the power of speech. Hitler's war against the Jews resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people, most of them not Jewish. It all began with hate speech.
it's socially unacceptable to be ahead of your time.
L'Olam Lo - Never Again
iratollah, having read a few of your comments regarding conservatives above, I think that what bears looking at here is the comparison of "classical liberalism" versus "post-moder liberalism." They are not the same thing, and we live with both forms of liberalism today. In order to coexist with "classical liberals", conservatives need to remember that they are not the "post-modern liberalists" we are ranting about here.
The founding fathers were classical liberals. Every part of their agendas were aimed at individual human freedom - including the RKBA. Certainly they were concerned with morality and socially conservative values ("We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." John Adams), Ben Franklin was not really a social conservative, and they didn't put him in the stocks for it. With the exception of social conservatism, modern conservatives have more in common with classical liberalism than they sometimes realize. Both classical liberalism and modern conservatism hew to the notion that there are certain permanent political and moral truths which are accessible to human reason. In this, they are both in agreement with the great philosophers of history - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas. They only disagree about which methods are best to access those truths, but they also tend to be in agreement that the methods arrived at must necessarily survive a strict constructionist constitutional interpretation. We who call ourselves "conservatives" might best be described as those who seek to conserve the strict constructionist world view in a world which we see increasingly descending into the degradation and marginalization of the individual.
"Post-modern" liberalism is the real disease. We call it "liberalism," but it is more accurately "illiberalism." It seeks to impose an ever increasing level of control over individual freedoms, and to increase the size and importance of government as the source and provider of all that is good. In terms of this discussion, that explains why liberals don't want you or me to have guns. Guns threaten the liberal agenda's ability to impose itself on every part of our lives. My 50¢ explanation for this is that modern liberals feel individually powerless (hence the pimping of victimhood) and are threatened by those who do not feel powerless; so they seek to impose powerlessness on the rest of us as a means of removing that threat to themselves, and in the process they can feel better about their own lack of power.
For what it's worth, and iratollah, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that you are more of the classical liberal than the modern liberal, which is why you support the RKBA. For my own part, whenever I have ranted on this website about "liberals," it was "post-modern liberalism" to which I was referring, and I apologize for not having made that more clear in any of my previous posts.
Enjoy your Thanks Giving.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
Revet wrote:I haven't encountered any hunters who oppose concealed carry yet (some just don't care or see the need in their lives), but I don't doubt they exist. What I do find regularly are gun owners and even CHL holders who've fallen for the "reasonable restriction" propaganda. It's a ruse of course; "give 'em a little and maybe they won't take it all." Yea, right. Offering any new restrictions to the antis is like offering your toe to a shark.
There are tons of hunters who will tell you that you do not need the ARs in your safe.
Anygunanywhere
"When democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizen still gets to vote." Mike Vanderboegh
"The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." – Ayn Rand
Revet wrote:I haven't encountered any hunters who oppose concealed carry yet (some just don't care or see the need in their lives), but I don't doubt they exist. What I do find regularly are gun owners and even CHL holders who've fallen for the "reasonable restriction" propaganda. It's a ruse of course; "give 'em a little and maybe they won't take it all." Yea, right. Offering any new restrictions to the antis is like offering your toe to a shark.
There are tons of hunters who will tell you that you do not need the ARs in your safe.
Anygunanywhere
You don't "need" a 3000 square foot house, a swimming pool, cigarettes, alcohol, a boat, or an SUV either.
Folks who come across with the "need" argument are taking a headlong dive down a slippery slope that gives unreasonable and poorly intentioned others the legal authority to regulate their lives in ways that place them afoul of the law for things people in this country have been free to do for the last 3 centuries.
Freedom isn't about the ability to meet only basic needs as defined by others. It's about being able to do anything in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness that doesn't unreasonably infringe on the rights of others to do the same. Legitimate restrictions on freedom need to be necessary (order can't be preserved without them),minimally intrusive (just enough to get the job done) and be shown to result in less harm than no restrictions.
The current crop of politicians who swear to uphold the Constitution and then do everything in their power to void it are acting to accumulate power for themselves by establishing tools to declare anyone who doesn't fully agree with them a criminal, not preserving freedom for their constituents. Shame on us if we continue to elect such folks and allow them to succeed.
Excaliber
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." - Jeff Cooper
I am not a lawyer. Nothing in any of my posts should be construed as legal or professional advice.
I don't need a cat. the difference is my cat isn't guaranteed to me by the constitution. So guess I they have a right to ask me to register and tag my cat. The gun is a right guaranteed in the 2nd amendment. I believe that even a sales tax on guns and ammo is illegal and unconstitutional.
They can have the cat if they want.
Liberty''s Blog
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." John F. Kennedy
A related aspect of the "need" argument are people who say, "You don't need a gun in church (school, hospital, Luby's, etc.)."
There is no place on the planet where murder, rape, and robbery have not been committed, except maybe Antarctica. These crimes have occurred in churches, schools, hospitals, Luby's, etc.
Even the White House was sacked and burned once.
Your chances of needing a weapon are much greater than your chances of needing an SUV. Everyone got along fine without SUVs until the 1990s. They used station wagons or trailers.
Liberty, your right to own a cat is guaranteed by the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, along with your rights to work, marry, have children, enter into contracts, speak French, wear a plaid kilt, and all the other unenumerated rights.
