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HunterCA -> RE: ***Unmoderated Gun rights debate - Self Defense to 2nd Amendment *** (11/2/2013 12:05:49 PM)
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I hope you'll all excuse me, I just came in from the rifle range, my porch, and have missed most of this conversation. Although I've read a couple of dozen pages or so. I'd like to through a couple of things out.
First, the philosophy that began with the enlightenment period broke into two main groups; the English branch and the French branch. The United States constitution is the culmination of the English branch. In that philosophy, a citizen is not a subject of the government. The will of the government does not supersede an individual. The French branch developed Socialism and the citicen is still the subject of the government. Most of Europe is governed with that philosophy.
In the French philosophy it is perfectly reasonable for a subject of the government to expect the government to protect them. So when they are in trouble they think to call the government to send big men armed with guns to protect them. As a person inculcated in the English branch of philosophy, I wonder why I should call the government to send a big man with a gun to protect me when I am myself a big man with a gun perfectly capable of protecting myself. And, as the old adage goes, God made man and Sam Colt made them equal. So, the big man issue is perfectly adaptable to women thanks to Sam Colt.
Europeans confuse the philosophical difference with a "Gun Culture" and blame the guns. Which is pretty much what liberals do as well.
It's not really a Wild West gun culture. In Scandinavia, all males enter the service and are issued a modern weapon which they keep for life. Additionally, the government supplies them with ammo on a yearly basis and expects them to stay proficient with that weapon. They have violence rates remarkably lower than the UK even though pretty much every household is armed. It's a cultural thing and not a gun thing. Actually, if in the US you control statistics to exclude minority gangs killing each other, the US has a much lower violence rate than the UK as well. So, discussion of no place safe in the US is something only a Europian perceives because they see the projection of anti-gun propaganda in their news rather than the American perception that violence pretty much exists in gang controlled areas and it is gang behavior that needs to be addressed rather than gang tools such as money, drugs and guns.
There was one comment I read about escalating gun violence by escalating the operation of guns, from single shots, to semi-automatic to automatic. I dispute that from experience. While issued a weapon with a three sound burst capability, I've never entered combat in anything other than semi-automatic mode. You aim, you shoot, you kill. Spraying bullets randomly gets you statistics that were discussed in here of something like 96% misses. Again, the lethality of the weapon is primarily a function of the skill, intent and determination of the operator of the weapon not so much the weapon itself. Assuming, of course, modern weapons being used for the purposes for which they were designed.
Again, I guess that lethality is a culture and not the "gun" if you consider training in the application of force a culture.
Of course the second amendment is all about self protection for a free person who is not the subject of the State, as the English philosophical branch evolved into. For a free person not to be forced into submission it is essential for that person to defend himself from all enemies.
Lastly, for our British friend, the American concept of the 2nd Amendment evolved from Britain. Beginning hundreds of years ago, British monarchs decreed that all British yeomen must maintain and practice with bows. In fact the decrees actually required bow practice at both two hundred and four hundred yards. Obviously, since that time of British yeoman being proud free men, the UK has gone over to the French branch of philosophy. Most of that was done by the Labor party after WWII. Which is interesting since after Dunkirk during WWII the British homeland was primarily rearmed and stood ready to repele Germany largely due to a drive by the American National Rifle Association (NRA) asking free Americans to donate spare arms they had in their closets to British people.
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