All the Reaons for Owning a Firearm

[Taurus 66]

I was on You Tube recently and had a lengthy debate with a member there. He didn't agree with the 2nd Amendment and my right to RKBA. Then he asked me what were my reasons for wanting to own guns. This is what I told him: "#1. I use a firearm as a means of defending myself and my family should a situation ever present itself when and where it's needed. #2. It's a good way to spend quality time with family and friends doing something fun like target and trap shooting. #3. I like to hunt and prefer the taste of fresh game over store meats contaminated with antibiotics, hormones, and God knows what else. #4. Guns can be used for pest control."

He's is from a country which undoubtedly banned and conditioned their servile citizens to accept it many generations ago. Now he's the new clueless generation trying to force his beliefs upon a citizen who still enjoys more freedom than him.

My question is this. Are there any other reasons for wanting to own guns than the ones I already listed?

 

[Ed Ames]

+1 on the text color.

Other reasons:
1. Competition. E.g. several types of shooting are Olympic sports, and there are many other shooting sports.

2. Collecting/historical interest/education. Firearms are some of the most durable historical artifacts, and can be a powerful way to connect to history, share that history with others, and they can represent investments similar to art as well.

3. Defense of/from the state. I know it is popular to say that rifles and handguns don't stand a chance against tanks and jets, but history doesn't agree.

That's in addition to your list of:
4. self/home defense.
5. Recreation.
6. Hunting.
7. Pest control.

Here's the thing though...the number one reason for owning a gun is self-sufficiency, and that's not a trait people are taught to value today. Especially in Europe there is a view that self-sufficiency is a contradiction in terms or a delusion. As such, you may have a hard time crossing the comprehension barrier.....

 

[mag1911]

Highlight the text like you're going to copy it. Makes it blue over white which is easier to read.

 

[grampajack]

Sorry to hear about the computer bug. That's never fun. You can probably save the computer by switching to a Linux operating system, like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. It's a good way to fix computers that don't warrant spending money on. Just make sure all your programs are compatible.

For the rest of us, hilight the text with your cursor. It's easily readable then.

As to your question, first of all you have to choose your battles. If this guy presumes to think US law is any of his business, then he's probably not reachable in the first place. I've come to realize that there are two basic types of gun control adherents. There are the ignorant and the willfully ignorant. The one you can change, the second you can only frustrate for your own amusement, usually with European violence statistics pre and post gun laws.

As far as reasons why you own a gun, why do we have to justify ourselves to them? That's not a winning argument, or even a productive one, because it's full of opinion based rhetoric as opposed to facts. Why do people need to own anything, like kitchen knives or golf clubs for example? Sure, they have their uses, but we could certainly get by without them. And more people are murdered with golf clubs than guns. What he's really trying to do is get you to go to something like hunting or target shooting, then argue that you don't need big scary assault rifles to do that. The liberals killed us with the whole "the 2A is for hunting" scheme for the last 80 years, and people are just now waking up to it. Don't let them pull you into that.

The fact of the matter is that guns reduce crime, according to every statistic ever produced on the subject. The simple fact that a given populace is allowed to own guns, just the mere possibility of a gun, reduces crime. So they hurt fewer innocent people than golf clubs, and they save lives while they're at it. Sounds like a win win to me.

 

[Bobson]

OP, have you tried this? Look at the picture:

 

[PabloJ]

The original post takes too much effort to read. My advice would be to never tell anyone you need gun to protect you against government that may become too oppressive. I would think saying that you like guns because you grew up around them and seen them used by grandpa and dad for hunting and such is the best way to go.

 

[Spats McGee]

Text color fixed, posts on that topic deleted, so we can move right along . . . .

 

[Bobson]

My advice would be to never tell anyone you need gun to protect you against government that may become too oppressive. I would think saying that you like guns because you grew up around them and seen them used by grandpa and dad for hunting and such is the best way to go.

I can see why someone would say that ("oppressive government? So you're one of those conspiracy theorists... "). The problem with saying you like guns because you grew up with them and seen dear ol' dad hunt and all that is that, ultimately, who cares? It's easy to say, "ok great, cherish those memories, but that's not a sufficient reason to own guns anymore." On the other hand, the Second Amendment exists specifically for the purpose of fighting back against one's own government, should it become oppressive/tyrannical. It's there in black and white, and it was put there by real live flesh and blood men who had to do just that.

I think that's really the only leg we have to stand on. There are already a huge number of people in this country who think the 2A should be repealed completely. You're not going to change their minds by hitting them with the feels.

Nobody cares why you LIKE guns. Why you NEED guns, otoh, might be more important, especially given that we can show why guns were needed by the gentlemen who wrote the Constitution to begin with. No, that specific problem doesn't exist HERE right now, but that's just it; the specific problem is evil/greed/corruption. Those are eternal failures of mankind. They're never going away. Thus, our ability to fight against then should never go away.

 

[DoubleMag]

Another reason is cherished family heirloom. Either handed down to you already, or you handing down to your kids & relatives. Warm memories of opening day rabbits with Grandpa, Thanksgiving day bunny hunts with Dad & Uncles and such

 

[yokel]

Nobody cares why you LIKE guns. Why you NEED guns, otoh, might be more important, especially given that we can show why guns were needed by the gentlemen who wrote the Constitution to begin with. No, that specific problem doesn't exist HERE right now, but that's just it; the specific problem is evil/greed/corruption. Those are eternal failures of mankind. They're never going away. Thus, our ability to fight against then should never go away.

Because government power, when abused, is precisely the source of the greatest threat to liberty, those in government cannot be trusted as the ultimate guardians of liberty. That task is properly and inevitably left to the people themselves. As individuals, in their families, and especially through their local institutions of religion and government, they were and are the proper focus for all the decisions and activities involved in maintaining the “well-regulated militia” that is the key concept of the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment’s logic arises from the connection between the people’s right to keep and bear arms and the security of their freedom. It aims to make sure that Americans do not easily forget a hard truth: moves to secure a government monopoly on the legal possession and use of arms war against what is, in practice, the sine qua non of the people’s right of self-government. Unlawful bills, (or, as in Obama’s plans, the issuance of unlawful “executive orders”) that aim to disarm the people, on whatever pretexts, are the open declaration of this war against republican self-government. As such, they signify the onset of what will inevitably become a war against the property, persons and lives of the people.

 

[tarosean]

because I want to. No other justification needed..

 

[TimSr]

He didn't agree with the 2nd Amendment and my right to RKBA.

Does he agree with a Constitutional form of government? That is the bigger issue. The honest antis call for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. Those who want to "regulate" ANY Constitutional Amendments with statute and revised judicial interpretation are more than anti-2A. They are anti-Constitution.

I own guns for all the reasons they put the 2nd A in the Bill of Rights. That is the right answer.

 

[Tirod]

I think we all are missing an important one: We are responsible adults and we aren't the problem.

Responsible adults can drive 140 kph on the autobahn and arrive safely.
Responsible adults can be prescribed hydrocodone and make that bottle last 6 months.
Responsible adults can possess and use switchblades for normal purposes.
Responsible adults can shoot firearms with silencers while hunting to prevent disturbing neighbors.
Responsible adults don't need government supervision of their activities - they supervise the government's activities because they run it.

Responsible adults are empowered and choose what they want to do in life. Not vice versa.

Responsible adults understand that the 2A isn't about hunting, it's about having a resource that may be necessary when the government refuses to respond to their directives.

John F. Kennedy has a quote about that.

 

[Kendal Black]

All of the above are sound enough reasons. The personally most compelling ones for me are the ability to defend myself if need be and that I find the technology really interesting.

I agree theoretically that an armed citizenry is the final guarantee of political liberty, as the Constitution's framers thought, and will argue for my right to arms on that basis, but that argument calls for the right audience. Some people are so thoroughly children in their relationship to the state that the idea of opposing the powers that be is just an alien concept. It makes them really, deeply uncomfortable. To get them to see the framers' point, you have to walk them back from what they currently believe about the state and the individual and the proper balance of power between them.

 

[yokel]

I agree theoretically that an armed citizenry is the final guarantee of political liberty, as the Constitution's framers thought, and will argue for my right to arms on that basis, but that argument calls for the right audience. Some people are so thoroughly children in their relationship to the state that the idea of opposing the powers that be is just an alien concept. It makes them really, deeply uncomfortable. To get them to see the framers' point, you have to walk them back from what they currently believe about the state and the individual and the proper balance of power between them.

If we truly respect the American founding, we must never agree to be estranged from it. We must never let the founding generation’s way of speaking and thinking become so alien and unfamiliar to us that we come to live, as it were, in another country, divided from them by barriers of impatient feeling and incomprehension.

This is one reason we must reject the revisions of “style” that cut us off from the monuments they inscribed to liberty and self-government. If our right of liberty is to survive, so must our ability to read and comprehend those inscriptions.

 

[Bobson]

Some people are so thoroughly children in their relationship to the state that the idea of opposing the powers that be is just an alien concept. It makes them really, deeply uncomfortable.

I've personally found that the bigger problem isn't an unwillingness to (potentially/hypothetically) fight back, but the belief that doing so would be utterly futile and would result in a one sided slaughter. Therefore, it's reasoned, we may as well give up our right to own guns, even if just a few lives are saved. After all, we wouldn't be able to fight back against the government's army and jets/tanks/etc anyway.

I've heard that argument many times from several different "antis," including people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic groups. It's not an uncommon perspective.

So yes, in a way there is an unwillingness to commit to a hypothetical future fight, but it's not stemmed so much from it being an alien concept as it is from the idea that we wouldn't stand a chance, so why bother?

In a way, it makes sense. Our founding fathers fought back with ALL the same arms and battery available to them. Further, they more or less broke the mold and fought guerilla style against an army that had never dealt with that kind of enemy before. Our armies today aren't standing in a field expecting to fight another army standing in a field, where structure and order will determine the victor. Our armies receive real training in how to actually FIGHT, both with and without weapons, that the average American will never be able to compete against. Even the average gun owner, or gun aficionado, won't ever be able to compete with it. Fitness is a huge factor and the public doesn't have it. Skill in the operation of a firearm. Unarmed combat. Battlefield medicine.

It's a stacked deck. I think any honest person would admit that.

So hen how do we rebut the argument that we could ever stand a real chance fighting back? And if we can't, then what purpose does the second amendment really serve in its original context?

Just a bit of devil's advocate to chew on.

 

[Kendal Black]

I've personally found that the bigger problem isn't an unwillingness to (potentially/hypothetically) fight back, but the belief that doing so would be utterly futile and would result in a one sided slaughter. Therefore, it's reasoned, we may as well give up our right to own guns, even if just a few lives are saved. After all, we wouldn't be able to fight back against the government's army and jets/tanks/etc anyway.

I've heard that argument many times from several different "antis," including people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic groups. It's not an uncommon perspective.

I've heard that line of argument too. However, history does not fully bear it out. Sometimes the insurgents win. Perhaps the argument would be stronger (or at least truer to itself) if it were stated as squeamishness about the butcher's bill.

A point missed in most such discussions is that it does not require a fully successful insurrection and revolution to make a country ungovernable.

 

[yokel]

I've heard that line of argument too. However, history does not fully bear it out. Sometimes the insurgents win. Perhaps the argument would be stronger (or at least truer to itself) if it were stated as squeamishness about the butcher's bill.

A point missed in most such discussions is that it does not require a fully successful insurrection and revolution to make a country ungovernable.

The key is to neutralize the four pillars as they directly drive any organization: leadership, management, command and control.

 

[.308 Norma]

"... being NECESSARY to the free state..."

 

[ATLDave]

Many good reasons listed already. Mechanical fascination is another. Guns are pretty interesting devices! Complex enough to be interesting, simple enough to be built and overhauled by a single person, and with numerous completely different modes of operation.

 

[Sistema1927]

Why? In one word: democide.

Governments killed millions upon millions of their own citizens during the 20th century, and the trend continues today. Most of those were easy to murder since they were disarmed.

 

[MedWheeler]

Bobson asks a very valid question in this:

So then how do we rebut the argument that we could ever stand a real chance fighting back? And if we can't, then what purpose does the second amendment really serve in its original context?

A good part of the counter to that would be the likely-innumerable members of the armed forces that would actually be a part of the fight against the oppression. Although a military failure, the recent actions in Turkey are just such an example, and has certainly caused at least some political awakening among the country's "dormant" population.

 

[CoRoMo]

Same reason given when Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb that mountain.

 

[jamesjames]

Flip the argument

We always get baited into the argument of "wnat do you need those things for?", or "2A is obsolete", or "In an evolved, mature, urban society there is no place for guns".

The basic argument stems from natural rights. Are citizens free, do they possess liberty. are we responsible enough stakeholders to exercise and be worthy of our liberties?

We must ask the antis, why do you abdicate your responsibility to be a fully fledged citizen? Why don't you have a gun, know how to operate it, and be ready to to defend your liberties lime a minuteman?

 

[stchman]

Why do I want or need guns?

It's my Constitutional right. Enough said.

I don't ask the antis why they drive a big fancy car, and if we get right down to it, they are far more likely to run me over with their car then I am to shoot them with my gun.