Is the damage to society from guns worth the freedom to have guns?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I don't have the stats but, but alcohol causes way more problems in society and has less benefits than guns.

Would prohibition be an answer? Seems like we tried that once
 
Last edited:
Thomas Jefferson said:

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

In other words do anything you like up to the point that it infringes on the rights of others to do the same. Having a thing does not infringe on the rights of others unless you actually misuse it. Anytime the collectivist pass laws aimed at things they are criminalizing the potential for crime rather that a crime itself. The idea is that the best way to keep guns out of the "wrong hands" is to keep them out of all hands.

Whenever you are seen as part of some group (the public) rather than as an individual, your are seen as no better than the least common denominator or weakest link and will be treated accordingly. This is the same principle upon which Jim Crow racism operated. When I was a kid in the South all Blacks were assumed to be up to no good until proven otherwise. Nowdays people found in posession of a weapon are assumed to be up to no good unless they can produce a state issued licence. The burden of proof should be on the accuser, not the accused. That is the true price of liberty. People are presumed innocent unless someone can prove otherwise.
 
Well, Jack, it just isn't that simple. If you made all guns disappear, violence would not go away. It would only get more personal, and possibly more prevalent. Let's back up, and pretend that only the cops and military would have guns, and that all the guns available to civilians were gone. How long before a cop or national guradsman loses his weapon to a criminal who decides to assault and take it by force? Even police and 19 year old soldiers can be overpowered. So, right way, the reality of disarming society seems to be an impossible dream more than possible reality. Furthermore, criminals are not going to be disarmed easily, nor are many citizens who hold guns dear, or feel that it is a patriotic duty to preserve the second amendment, possibly by ANY means, to include non-compliance. In a theoretical dream world, disarmament sounds good. When you balance the thought with reality, and that includes the innocent civilan being able to defend themself (can you envision a 90 lb. little old lady defending herself with a gun against a 250lb drugged up burglar?). Take away guns from the innocent and law abiding, and you make the criminals bold, and the power hungry bureacrats even bolder. I do not want to see a country like that, so I'll remain at risk, with my gun at my side, and I will ask othes to accept the risk, and arm themselves, or trust society to protect them if they can't accept that social responsibility themselves.
 
The elephant in the room

This debate does not start with a blank slate. There are hundreds of millions of guns already out there. Even if it were desirable, eliminating these guns is simply not feasible, without turning the country into a draconian police state.

There's also a small matter called the Constitution.
 
BullfrogKen said:
But rather, what is the cost to society for not allowing it's private citizens to own guns?
Click to expand...

That is the $64,000.00 question.

Kinda makes you wonder why there has never been a government sponsored study of that. ............ NOT! The Representative or Senator proposing such a study would probably be kicked out of office by his brethren for even proposing such a measure.

Surely there has been some form of such a study done by some college, citizen's advocacy group, or national gun rights organization somewhere...

I'll run a Google on it and see what I can find.

Woody
 
Interesting argument, and I see where you're trying to go with it, but I think there are some fundamental flaws underlying the article's logic. Regarding prohibition, the author states "They considered the “collateral damage” well worth the price of freedom.

It's the same with guns."

No, it is NOT the same with firearms. There is nothing in the bill of rights that says the right of the people to drink alcoholic beverages, shall not be infringed. Of course, the converse is true about bearing arms. Fundamental flaw right there.

And again, the article argues "The very same as we tolerate alcohol in our society with all the damage done to our communities; we've made the decision to tolerate the freedom to have firearms."

This is a communitarian argument - that society as a whole has made some choices. This is again ignores both the legal/constitutional argument surrounding firearms, and the individual (vs. communitarian) rights argument.

On the other hand, comparisons to prohibition do highlight the fact that outright bans rarely solve the an issue - the issue then goes underground. Ban alcohol drove things under the table, and was a major impetus to the growth of organized crime. People still got their hooch - they just paid more for it. And people were injured and died as a result of prohibition as well - drinking rot-gut that blinded and poised quite a few. Prohibitions of firearms would likely have a similar effect.

Here are some stats FWIW which do support some of the authors quantitative claims

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/guns.cfm

and

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/tables/guncrimetab.cfm

And, with many of these crimes, if they were not committed with a firearms in the assailant's possession, there would likely have been a knive, rock, pointed stick etc. instead.
 
JackBurtonJr said:
The Question

Are we as a country willing to accept hundreds of thousands of horrific situations and incidents
Click to expand...

Are you talking about cars? Because we are all much much more likely to die in a car accident than of a gunshot wound. Shall we ban cars? Shall we ban alcohol due to drunk drivers? I haven't seen that suggested, last time that happened, it didn't end too well and probably ended up costing more lives.

I still like the Ben Franklin quote

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety"


My local paper ran an editorial in which the writer said something to the effect of "we must acknowledge that the founding fathers who wrote the Bill of Rights would be appalled by these killings"

If I thought it would do any good (which it wouldn't) I would reply to that editorial and say

Yes, they would be appalled, just as any sane person is and would be appalled. However, they would be just as appalled if the government used that as an excuse to rob us of a liberty which was specifically enumerated within the Bill of Rights which they authored.
 
Holy cow.... What a great post ! I wish I could add every bit of that to my signature.

Did everyone read it ? Truer words are hard to find.

Thanks Blarby !

Sadly, any new firearms legislation will not have any effect on the existing illegal firearms possessed with evil intent in America.

Gangbangers, potential murderers, sociopaths, and other undesirables will not simply relinquish their arms at the signing of a new law. Those who wish to do evil in possession of any weapon will simply find another means of acquiring it, or another weapon.

In this latest tragedy, its very obvious that should he the attacker chose to have done so, he could have carried an explosive device into the theater capable of just as much destruction as he wrought with small arms. The only reason he did not is that he himself wanted to inflict each wound, end each life....and he had some sort of theory that he could escape that situation with his own life. Very sad, but very true.

This is not a standard legal weapons owner. This is a violent sociopath.

In truth, if you wanted to make a law that would prevent this tragedy, as well as another one in nearby Columbine....all you would need to do is outlaw social deviant and castigated 14-30 year old males who were failures in academic environments.

Hows that for some targeted legislation ? Not real fun is it..............but its true.

Its not the victims' fault.

Its not the weapons fault.

Its not the theaters fault.

Its not your fault.

Its not societies fault.

Its not my fault.

The fault rests solely in the lap of that "tie-died orange haired" freak.....no one else.

Society has a habit of producing violent aberrations in even the most peaceful and harmless of environments.

We are, by nature, a predatory and violent species. One that is frequently shortsighted and self serving at the most basic primitive level. When we feel that.... that ability to sustain ourselves in this society no longer exists, that primal creature takes over- no longer salved by the constraints of a polite society to which we no longer have the ability nor desire to connect with.

This too, is sad, but true.

No amount of litigation or restriction will prevent such aberrations, nor quash their ability to inflict their wounds of self perceived vitriolic justice on the society that has wronged them.

Its almost as if its a genetic glitch.

KILL KILL KILL

We have a motto, humanity.

Death is its banner- and it always has been......always will be.

The ability to take life , and the lives of others, into our hands as a responsibility or debt as individuals is both a very constructive and powerful force at the core of humanity.

It has both a light, and dark, side.

Even the mightiest of human spirits can be reduced to our primitive selves by failure, and use the abilities within and without us to lash out .......

But in the end, those failures are our own. Not that of our brothers.

They may be effect, and direct cause. Action however, rests solely in the hands of the individual.

That is something that no law, no test, no background check, nor assay will ever be able to detect- the will of the individual.
Click to expand...
 
I know I am going to hear about this one, but here goes.

Sometimes people get hurt. Sometimes, people die. It is not the role of our government to prevent this. The role of government is to prevent it from happening as a result of intent. When a bad guy robs, maims, rapes, kills, attacks, a citizen, he (or she) is taking away their right to be unharmed - the government is to step in and stop if possible, punish afterward. That is the role of the police (to stop if possible) and the legal system (to punish afterward.)

The problem with government in 2012 is the amount of bubble wrap they try to put on society. They have concealed much of this in "for the benefit of society" window dressing; but it ultimately comes down to bubble wrap. Let me provide some real life examples:

in TN, you cannot smoke in a public building unless entrance is restricted to persons over the age of 21. That means that if you own a place of business, you cannot allow people to smoke inside unless you also tell under 21 persons that they cannot enter. This applies to restaurants, gas stations, tobacco stores (yep, imagine that,) and even private businesses that have employees or the public entering the building who are under 21.

Why? - smoking is evil and you need to quit
the window dressing? - secondhand smoke may hurt someone

where's the freedom folks? if you don't want to die from emphysema, quit smoking. If you think secondhand smoke is harmful, don't go to the places where smoking is allowed, go somewhere else. Let the people choose for themselves what they want for their own life. Let the business owner choose for himself what can and can't go on in his place of business.

Seatbelts - click it or ticket. Seatbelts save lives, it's a proven fact. Let's make it so that everyone has the option to wear it if they want to, in order to increase their safety. No, let's force it upon them like a booster seat on a 5 year old. The seat belt doesn't save anyone but the person wearing it. You can't hide this one behind the safety of others; so they don't even try. Click it or ticket, because we said so.

If this keeps up, it won't be long before some other safety devices will be mandated by the state for our own protection. earplugs maybe, during fireworks - $50 fine, plug it or ticket; we can't let the public go deaf. how about water wings at the beach (for adults and children alike) - $75 fine, float it or ticket. maybe condoms before marriage - $100 fine - wrap it or ticket.

It isn't their job to keep us safe from ourselves. Sorry for the rant.
 
woj...

Thank you for your insightful post. I think a partial answer to your objections is the audience to whom the piece is directed. It is not really for those of us in the RKBA crowd.

The intent is to show the illegal/unwise use of one legal product that is tolerated as part of a free society versus the the illegal/unwise use of another legal product that then cause some people to hypocritically want to ban or do away with it.

Sometimes you have to nudge people over to the truth instead of dragging them kicking and screaming. My article is a nudge. If somethings are worded differently than the way I would word them for a more knowledgeable RKBA crowd it is only because some people can't handle the full truth so blatantly stated. :)

But I'll take a look at the wording and see how to improve it. I am still rewriting some of the material that I posted four years ago.
 
Well if you're going to perform a utilitarian balancing, you need to have the proper items in the scales. In this case, the freedom to own firearms does not cause murder. Murder is already illegal. So it's like asking if the freedom to own cars is worth the damage caused by drunk drivers. The vehicle is merely the instrument, and it wouldn't make much sense to ban cars because of drunk drivers.

But beyond this, a fundamental right remains regardless of utilitarian balancing. It restricts the ability of the state to restrict the right EVEN IF the exercise of the right is thought to have too many negative consequences.
 
JackBurtonJr said:
firearms were used in 67.1 percent of the Nation’s murders
Click to expand...

Proportion for NYC is similar. Guns are illegal in NYC.

Even if you can magically make all guns disappear, people will simply use something else. Getting stabbed or burned alive is not much better than getting shot. Osaka school massacre and Happy Land fire are two good examples.
 
As Tennjed suggest alcohol causes far more damage to society than firearms. Indeed, I'd bet most domestic violence issues are fueled by Jim Beam or Jack.

History proves that out-lawing alcohol was a mistake as it only created a tremendous black-market......breeding even worse crime. St. Valentines Day massacre ring a bell?

I'm NOT prepared to give up my freedom to have guns because of the mis-deeds of the few, and I feel I must re-write the OP's question in order to answer it correctly because any "damage to society from guns".......is not from guns at all.......but from the dark recesses lurking within the human mind.

It never ceases to amaze me what human beings are capable of doing to each other......the tools or means by which they do their un-speakable deeds is never really the disturbing issue for me as much as the fact that they actually had the mind set to do what they did.

Russ
 
Realistic Threat Assessment

I believe there is ample evidence that we need to focus on identifying dangerous or disturbed people and keeping firearms out of their hands. We need to do a much better job of reducing the threat they pose. It'll not only involve law enforcement, but the intervention of family, friends and others.

I always find it odd that some of my anti-gun acquaintances live in fear of ARs or AKs (or whatever) and bemoan America's gun violence as if they expect to be murdered in the next 24 hours. Yet they typically face a far greater threat from bad drivers, including themselves, as people babble on their phone or try to send text messages while driving. Then there are the drunk drivers who have typically killed over 10,000 people a year since 1991 (source:http://www.centurycouncil.org/blog/2011/drunk-driving-fatalities-continue-fall). However, deaths are down due to a variety of factors, including sentencing guidelines and education.

I know that most of my neighbors have weapons. Yet the three mile stretch of road near my home has claimed six people in the last couple years. I've seen some of the bodies myself. I know of nobody who has been shot.

It seems to me that the model for dealing with gun violence should be similar to that of dealing with vehicular deaths and drunk drivers. Why ban cars when they, like guns, have perfectly legitimate uses? The problem really is people.
 
I might point out as I am sure others have, If people actually used their second amendment rights regularly (religiously even), these horrific incidents would not keep happening. If a person was going to be shot down by law abiding citizens before said person could do serious damage, what would be the point of attempting such a massacre in the first place? And if someone was dumb enough to try, his or her efforts would be ended very quickly.

We as gun owners need to use the situations for the offensive instead of only taking a defensive standpoint. In these cases the best defense is a good offense. Use it to our advantage. Educate people, put up billboards, run TV adds, newspapers and magazine, advocating personal carry and defense. Use the anti's own arguments against them. Appeal to their sense of preservation of life, and keeping their families safe. A gun at your side is a lot quicker than a cop down the street.

Think of your loved ones, carry a gun.
 
Yes, because percentage wise it is extremely small. Not to mention the offsetting good guns do in the hands of law abiding citizens.
 
The second amendment was made second for an excellent reason. That alone is worth the small price we pay. Like someone else mentioned let's look at alcohol and how many people are killed and maimed not to mention numerous ruined lives.
If you really want to save lives make everyone go to public transportation. Oh wait I forgot personal vehicles are Worth the pain and suffering that comes from using them. The last thing we ever need is to lose our rights to keep and bear arms.
 
The damage done to unarmed oppressed people has been and always will be worse than putting up with a some minor gun crime.

Stack the 15,000 gun-related deaths annually in the United States against the MILLIONS of deaths to unarmed victims in oppressive nations... the choice seems evident.

History repeats itself. I am 100% convinced that if we did not have the 2A and 'military grade' weaponry, we would be run over and enslaved by the government.

Look at Great Britain. Those people HAVE NO RIGHTS. They cannot even legally defend themselves if they are attacked.
 
Swimming pools are extremely dangerous for little kids. Hope we can get some sort of background check for those.

Watch your lane.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

JackBurtonJr
  • Locked
Is the damage to society from the misuse of guns worth the freedom to have guns?
2
Replies
45
Views
1K
Robert
Robert
C
  • Locked
Essay: The Gun Debate Itself Makes Children and Society Less Safe
Replies
18
Views
1K
beatledog7
B
A
  • Locked
Reply from Google re Gun Ads
Replies
19
Views
2K
spacemanspiff
S
F
  • Locked
Why you should carry every day
Replies
5
Views
536
Ninj500
N
W
  • Locked
From England:21 Gun Salute For Charlton Heston
Replies
2
Views
636
Coyote Blue
C
Back
Top