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Subject: 
Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 23 Sep 2003 05:01:27 GMT
Viewed: 
747 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli wrote:

snip

  
  
  
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=22112

And yet you still have not addressed the post linked above. Throughout history there has never been a democracy where the citizenry was unarmed. Even in Canada, Britian, and Austrailia you still have armed citizenries. Nixion left office, my right to vote, politicians obeying the durration of their terms, etc. occur becuase the people have the ability to force it, not because we have to force it.

-Mike Petrucelli

I’ve been addressing it from the beginning--An armed citizenry is not needed *today*. I’ve talked with my local MPP, I’ve spoken with other politicians at various levels of political power (Haven’t had a chance to talk to the big JC yet, but, eh, whatrya gonna do) and since my ‘topic du jour’ is guns, that’s where the conversation usually goes.

Not one of them “leave their seats” because they fear getting shot. Ever. Run a poll. Ask ‘em. Go ahead. Until you come up with *any* concrete rationale for this, it’s a wispy notion of a long dead ideal.

The opinions of a handful of politicians are irrelavent (as if they would be honest about it anyway.) You (and your politicians) can believe whatever hippy notions you want about the power of the people, but the real power of the people comes from their superiority of force over the government.
  
If you want a medical example, cutting off your leg to save the finger isn’t appropos--a better one is someone walking around with a ruptured appendix saying, “Don’t operate because there was once a time when it served a vital and useful function!”

We can, right now, go to the grave sites of eleven thousand of your fellow Americans who died in a violent gun homicide in one year. We can read their obituaries. We can visit the morgue and see them. We can weep with 11 thousand families.

Disarming law abiding citizens through gun control laws has no proven effect on the crime rate. So you are only trying to save one’s little finger by suggesting chopping one’s legs off. What would happen is one would still lose the finger but have nothing to support him in the process.
  
And you come up with some notion that somehow at some time you *may* need a gun to protect your rights? Some wispy vague idea that hasn’t been needed in this, or the previous century? Some false pretense in order to justify you having a gun in your house? Go to the family of a person who was just killed violently (should be 30 just today) at the business end of a gun and tell them. Tell them your reasons for keeping a gun in your house.

And don’t start talking about Canada and other countries as if that helps your point. Canadian gun owners don’t buy into the lies that having guns in their homes “maintain the freedom”. We didn’t need guns in 1867, and we sure didn’t need guns in 1982.

But you had the ability to use them, that’s all that was necessary.

   We’re not indoctorined and brain washed with the ‘high ideals’ of ‘outta my cold dead hands’ and ‘brain lead’.

And that is why, every single year, Canada, as well as the other countries you mentioned, will have less violent gun related deaths per capita than Americans. We don’t idealize the gun. We don’t worhip it, and we sure don’t write off the deaths of our fellow citizen with some baseless arguement.

The blood of the dead are on the hands of those that abuse freedom to commit acts of evil. It has nothing to do with the availability of guns. Gun control is about control not guns.

-Mike Petrucelli

And we’re right back to the beginning.

I went to university, I minored in poli-sci and, occasionally, I went to class...(1)

I had to read your constitution. I studied your laws. I looked at the democratic process. Not once did it say in *any* book, nor written in *any* law, that your gun in your house is there to preserve the democratic process.

I asked for cites. I asked for laws equating guns to your freedom of democracy. You come up with false analogies saying that getting rid of guns is like cutting off the legs to save the finger. I say that a more apt analogy is removing a burst appendix to save the body--guns are accounting for approximately 11 thousand violent homicides per year. That’s akin to a cancer. There’s a cite. There’s a concrete example of what guns are doing in your country. 30 people are dead today violently due to guns. We can go to their funerals. We can read their obituaries in the paper. Now show a concrete example how your gun in your house outweighs those 30 lives lost today. Give a cite that says that 30 guns today preserved the freedom of your country today Show me in your constitution where it says that democracy is protected today due to your gun in your house. Show me that in your Federal/State laws.

I showed you that Nixon stepped down, that your own democratic process works every 2/4 years on the federal level, when congress people and senators and, yes, even idiot presidents get voted out and all these seats change without any guns to be seen, heard from, or even alluded to.

You show me history and other countries. I show you today in America. You talk about ‘guns preserving the freedom’ and other vague notions that haven’t been needed in the 21th century, yet alone the 20th century in America and I show you 11 thousand dead people this very year.

You talk about the ‘superiortity of force’ of the people over the gov’t. Well, if superior force = arms and armament in your mind, and the armed services is a branch of the gov’t, then no, you don’t have ‘superiority of force’. If you talk of the power of democracy, the power of the vote, then well, lo and behold, you do have superior power over the gov’t--you can tell ‘em to take a hike once every 4 years, and, if things get really bad, a la Nixon, you can tell ‘em to go walking sooner. Guns aren’t needed for any of this to occur, btw.

When quotes are thrown about like ‘outta my cold dead hands’ and ‘brain lead’, these don’t sound like they would be spoken by responsible citizens concerned about the well being of their fellow citizens. These quotations sound like they would come out of the mouths of zealots whose only regard is to keep their guns in their homes, and the care and protection of their fellow citizen be damned.

It’s irrefutable--if there are no guns, there are no gun related homicides. We’ll work on the rest as well, but, because there are other ways to kill people, does that mean we shouldn’t attempt to eliminate this venue? Because cars kill, because accidents happen, because people slip on bars of soap in the tub, does that disqualify us from seeking to end the violent homicidal gun related deaths of others?

Just asking.

“The blood of the dead are on the hands of those that abuse freedom to commit acts of evil.” Evil is those people who have the freedom to do something good for their fellow citizen but don’t because they also have the freedom *not* to do what’s right for their fellow citizen. Evil is the violent but completely preventable deaths of thousands of your fellow citizens. Deaths which you allow to happen daily just by having a gun in your house. Evil is sweeping away the deaths of people with false claims of supporting democracy. You have the freedom to buy guns. You also have the freedom to get rid of same. Again I ask, what happened to their rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’? Oh right, they’re dead so you can own a gun.

Dave K

1- an exposition technique to infuse a little levity into the following tirade (snivved from ‘Sports Night’). Actually I rarely missed a poli-sci class ‘cause I really liked ‘em, and I especially appreciated the prof--a former citizen of the United States who loved the political process for most of his life. He also wore bow ties and pulled that off remarkably well.



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Sticking my gun where it doesn't belong...
 
(...) The opinions of a handful of politicians are irrelavent (as if they would be honest about it anyway.) You (and your politicians) can believe whatever hippy notions you want about the power of the people, but the real power of the people comes (...) (21 years ago, 23-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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