Parkland School Shooting

Jaw said:
That partial response has me doubting your sincerity here, but that's cool. Let's simplify things. You enlighten us with a scenario that meets the Julio plausibility threshold and also provides an example of how it is easier to reduce the rights of a gun owning society than a society that does not have access to guns.
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I'm sorry it's a sticking point for you. I read a lot of comments to the effect that our current understanding of gun rights is predicated on protecting the populace from domestic tyranny. When I ask what domestic tyranny is...nothing.

If we indeed have guns to protect us FROM the government, somebody please give me a plausible scenario in which it's appropriate for us to use them to that end.

Cajun's given a few examples. Does anyone agree with him?
 
Jaw said:
Ordering a National Guard unit to arrest some protestors who are throwing bricks and flipping over cop cars is entirely different than ordering that same unit to engage their countrymen in a firefight.

The oaths that enlisted and commissioned soldiers in the Army take are different, but both start off nearly identically, with

"do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

That is because we aren't some banana republic with a standing army made up of conscripts that were handed a rifle. We have an all volunteer army that is expected and taught to conscientiously uphold and defend the nation and it's Constitution, not be a goon squad for a strongman.
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You should read Ron Perlstein's Nixonland, if you haven't. Terrific exposition of various flareups of social unrest and of the interplay between state and local law enforcement, federal troops, and protestors of different stripes.

I will say that you're painting a picture of social unrest that is rather without nuance, while those situations tend to be awash in it.

because we aren't some banana republic with a standing army made up of conscripts that were handed a rifle

Right, which would seem to underscore why trying to use Venezuela as a boogeyman is an empty and misleading tactic. We have mature institutions that they lack. That's kinda my point in suggesting that we don't need private firearms to protect us from our military.
 
Julio3000 said:
I'm sorry it's a sticking point for you. I read a lot of comments to the effect that our current understanding of gun rights is predicated on protecting the populace from domestic tyranny. When I ask what domestic tyranny is...nothing.

If we indeed have guns to protect us FROM the government, somebody please give me a plausible scenario in which it's appropriate for us to use them to that end.

Cajun's given a few examples. Does anyone agree with him?
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It's all semantics. The winner writes the history. We could be taken over by the most authoritarian regime and the history books would read how they saved us from a tyrannical government. I don't expect many here to agree with me but what made the government we revolted from any worse than the one we have now? That governments still around and doing okay depending on your point of view. They got gun control. "Free" healthcare, ended slavery much sooner, and as a bonus they get random acid attacks instead of school shootings. If we lose the revolution the history books tell us about the vicious terrorists like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Maybe the founding fathers were the bad guys. Weren't they all rich guys with their own financial motives to wage war? Sounds awfully familiar.
 
You are both asking for a dystopian storyline and ignoring the argument made by multiple posters that the presence of so many gun owners is in itself a deterrent to a situation where guns need to be used to protect us from the government. But I know that you already know that, and I've always enjoyed dystopian fiction, so why not?

Chapter One

The year is 2050, climate change has decimated the nation's farms in California and the midwest, and the urban populations on the coasts are starving. President Barry Dolezal, of the New Progressive People's Socialist Worker's Party, has just made a monumental speech about the racial injustice of the inherent "Whiteness" of farming. His administration spends the next two weeks stoking the anger of the urban population on CitizenBook, the popular social media site that was known as Facebook until it's liberation into government ownership by the 46th President of The United States following two consecutive blue tidal wave elections that occurred after video surfaced on Facebook of the 45th president's scandalous three way affair with Senator Lindsay Graham and Governor Sarah Palin.

With the important urban population both angry and starving, President Dolezal strikes, sending units of the People's Army to confiscate the farm land and it's food. "They didn't build that," he tells a reporter, "that land belonged to the native americans until it was taken away during the racially injust empirical expansion of European powers. Now we're going to take it back and cover it with solar farms, so we can trade carbon credits to China for food."
 
Well, I'm content to leave it here, with the caveat that "A is true, B is true, therefore A caused B" is not a very strong logical proposition.
 
thethe said:
We have no clue about what type of deterrent guns act as until they are taken away.

I'm sure women will be able to defend themselves against male assailants with their fists.
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I'd want to look at data for how many women are killed, injured, or threatened by guns in DV incidents before going out on this particular limb.

You want to wager what those numbers look like compared to your scenario?
 
Julio3000 said:
I'd want to look at data for how many women are killed, injured, or threatened by guns in DV incidents before going out on this particular limb.

You want to wager what those numbers look like compared to your scenario?
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Considering its almost impossible to quantify the impact of a deterrent I'm not sure what's the point.
 
Julio3000 said:
Haha, yeah, I can see why you might not be too hot to try to quantify it.
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Luckily we've never been in a situation in this country where we have had to see th alternative universe

I suppose we could look at places in Europe where rapes are up. But why talk about that?
 
Well, as I suggested, instead of looking at gauzy abstracts, you could actually look at the number of women who are killed by guns at the hands of domestic partners.
 
This page, from the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. The linked tab is "homicide," but I'd suggest clicking through the many subdivisions of the information.
 
Jaw said:
You are both asking for a dystopian storyline and ignoring the argument made by multiple posters that the presence of so many gun owners is in itself a deterrent to a situation where guns need to be used to protect us from the government. But I know that you already know that, and I've always enjoyed dystopian fiction, so why not?

Chapter One

The year is 2050, climate change has decimated the nation's farms in California and the midwest, and the urban populations on the coasts are starving. President Barry Dolezal, of the New Progressive People's Socialist Worker's Party, has just made a monumental speech about the racial injustice of the inherent "Whiteness" of farming. His administration spends the next two weeks stoking the anger of the urban population on CitizenBook, the popular social media site that was known as Facebook until it's liberation into government ownership by the 46th President of The United States following two consecutive blue tidal wave elections that occurred after video surfaced on Facebook of the 45th president's scandalous three way affair with Senator Lindsay Graham and Governor Sarah Palin.

With the important urban population both angry and starving, President Dolezal strikes, sending units of the People's Army to confiscate the farm land and it's food. "They didn't build that," he tells a reporter, "that land belonged to the native americans until it was taken away during the racially injust empirical expansion of European powers. Now we're going to take it back and cover it with solar farms, so we can trade carbon credits to China for food."
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You are not a silly person, but I find the argument--that is made with some consistency by the goofballs over at The Federalist--that an armed citizenry is somehow necessary to fight back a tyrannical government is silly. Taking that argument to its ludicrous extreme, if the citizenry is to be armed to the extent of the government, folks better have an Abrams M1 Tank in their driveway, a Blackhawk helicopter in the backyard, and a basement full of RPGs with a launcher and tactical nuclear weapons.
 
50PoundHead said:
You are not a silly person, but I find the argument--that is made with some consistency by the goofballs over at The Federalist--that an armed citizenry is somehow necessary to fight back a tyrannical government is silly. Taking that argument to its ludicrous extreme, if the citizenry is to be armed to the extent of the government, folks better have an Abrams M1 Tank in their driveway, a Blackhawk helicopter in the backyard, and a basement full of RPGs with a launcher and tactical nuclear weapons.
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I have said several times that an armed citizenry is not and will not be necessary to fight back a tyrannical government, because the existence of the armed citizenry deters a tyrannical government. I even elaborated quite a bit on that in post #816 of this thread.

Also, I am disappointed by the poor reception of my attempt at humor in the post you quoted. I hate it when I'm the only one laughing at my jokes.
 
Jaw said:
I have said several times that an armed citizenry is not and will not be necessary to fight back a tyrannical government, because the existence of the armed citizenry deters a tyrannical government. I even elaborated quite a bit on that in post #816 of this thread.

Also, I am disappointed by the poor reception of my attempt at humor in the post you quoted. I hate it when I'm the only one laughing at my jokes.
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I don't think an armed citizenry deters a tyrannical government, at least in the modern sense. The citizenry currently does not possess the armaments necessary to fight the war machines that constitute modern governments. If our government would decide to become tyrannical, it surely could and there is nothing the citizenry could do about it. The fact that we live in a democracy that is fairly active provides the checks that deter tyranny.
 
50PoundHead said:
I don't think an armed citizenry deters a tyrannical government, at least in the modern sense. The citizenry currently does not possess the armaments necessary to fight the war machines that constitute modern governments. If our government would decide to become tyrannical, it surely could and there is nothing the citizenry could do about it. The fact that we live in a democracy that is fairly active provides the checks that deter tyranny.
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That's only if you assume the military continues to follow orders. I am surprised so many here think that US troops would drive tanks down main street of Hometown, USA in anger. against all enemies, foreign and domestic
 
Jaw said:
That's only if you assume the military continues to follow orders. I am surprised so many here think that US troops would drive tanks down main street of Hometown, USA in anger. against all enemies, foreign and domestic
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I don't necessarily think they would. But then, I don't really understand the predicate situation, and you haven't done anything to illuminate it. If there is armed resistance on a scale that local and federal law enforcement could not handle, it might be a different story, and not one I think either of us could predict without more information.

But I find it all a logical tangle that gets pretty far afield considering you're pegging the whole thing to owning guns.

So:
-domestic unrest happens
-military has to respond to domestic unrest, because privately owned firearms make it too dangerous for local law
-military breaks down over unwillingness to obey orders involving domestic operations

That's about it in a nutshell?

What's really troubling about this to me is that is really does seem to be directly associating gun ownership with the inevitability of or even desire for some kind of military coup or internecine battle. I mean, you're putting this hypothetical scenario out there as a positive case for why guns are good and necessary?
 
I'm saying the stuff you see in the Catalonia video that Cajun posted isn't going to happen here, because here people have the means to attempt to fight back, and the potential escalation of that conflict is scary enough that it will be avoided.

You are familiar with the policy of mutually assured destruction preventing nuclear war. What I'm suggesting really isn't that much different. The government has an unstoppable weapon it could use to destroy the power of citizens, the military, but doing so would create a level of chaos that would destroy the power of the government.
 
Jaw said:
I'm saying the stuff you see in the Catalonia video that Cajun posted isn't going to happen here, because here people have the means to attempt to fight back, and the potential escalation of that conflict is scary enough that it will be avoided.

You are familiar with the policy of mutually assured destruction preventing nuclear war. What I'm suggesting really isn't that much different. The government has an unstoppable weapon it could use to destroy the power of citizens, the military, but doing so would create a level of chaos that would destroy the power of the government.
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Interesting that you should say that, because that (MAD) was exactly the analogy that I was considering in trying to recapitulate your point of view.

The thing is, though, where the rubber meets the road, we have all kinds of injustices that flare up into sporadic violence and are ultimately snuffed out by the power of the state. Is the answer to that really more guns? Should the white, suburban protesters against equal housing measures in the 60s have come to the protests strapped? Should those with the opposite point of view? Should the Ferguson protestors, who have a legitimate case against racialized state violence in their community, have started popping shots at the police? The Dakota pipeline protestors? Any basic libertarian goof who thinks the government is stealing their money?

When widespread gun ownership has a toll that is obvious from, say, the collection of links that I referred to above, you're saying that it is on balance a societal good because of some kind of grand, unprovable negative.
 
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