Posted by seamar_116 on 11/4/2015 8:08:00 AM (view original):
Posted by DoctorKz on 11/4/2015 12:46:00 AM (view original):
Australian gun control. In 1996 they confiscated 650k weapons. Was 1/5 to 1/3 of the citizens weaponry. They do not have a Bill of Rights that includes a right to bear arms.
In US there are as many weapons as citizens. Over 300 million. Rumor has it that some Americans cling to their guns and religion. If a nice young man knocked on the door, said he was with the government, is here to confiscate the weapons, would those same citizens suddenly cease to clinging to said guns? Countless government agents, as well as scores of law abiding citizens would die.
It is a fool's errand to consider gun confiscation in this country. Estimates say 30-50 percent of this country's residences contain a gun. 9/11 would look like a picnic compared to the first day of an attempt to confiscate. You would be sending my son, your nephew, grandson, neighbor , out to die for a political agenda that would change nothing regarding mass shootings. Make a valid point or shut the hell up.
<< You would be sending my son, your nephew, grandson, neighbor , out to die for a political agenda>>
Those of mine run that risk every day in the good ol' US of A just walking out their front door.
Gun control is not high on my list of priorities.
But seamar is first of all right about the reality of risk - living in a country where the number of violent crimes (and that is WITH the mafia, camorra etc. counted) is about the same number as in any good sized CITY in the USA - along with having health care be a right for all are two reasons we are happy raising our daughter here. Gives the whole idea of "National" or "Homeland" security a whole new meaning.
But beyond that, first of all Australians had just as many guns per person, were just as much a frontier country (and more recently) as we were, and when laws were passed people turned in guns and violence went down, period.
Would that happen in the US? Don't know but here is what I do know for sure:
1) those who threaten to use their Second Amendment rights "in case the government gets repressive of the American people" are full of it: Ferguson was that and the gun people were nowhere to be found. Nowhere. The Patriot Act passed and they were nowhere to be seen. We have more people in prison than any other country by far, just had a mass wave of foreclosures of people's homes. Nothing. It is sleight of hand: define every ACTUAL repressive act by the government as not quite counting, not ever being that day when government is repressive and you can keep claiming you are serious about it forever without ever having to back it up. My guess is that these guys will never do a thing.
2) but in case they really did do something - a bit of reality. When the Second Amendment was passed, everyone had flintlocks. rifles. The government may have had a few cannon, but I doubt that would have been decisive. Still, when government forces, in both Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion, under conditions much more favorable to a popular rebellion (the government was new and not yet fully integrated into American life, both sides had only rifles, the army was small) easily crushed both rebellions. When a much larger and more organized rebellion, the Civil War broke out, again, both sides had rifles and horses and cannon. The North won and no one really doubts that the outcomes was ever much in doubt, though it took a little longer because Lincoln had some hesitant generals.
But today the government has a) more legitimacy, since we have been a country for a long time, b) less of a sense of humor, since a rebellion in a world where the USA has to deal with Russia, China, ISIS etc. is one where it cannot afford to be lax regarding a serious revolt, c) tanks, d) an air force, e) a navy, f) missiles, g) nuclear weapons, h) drones is one where a rebellion in North America by the Ducks Dynasty types would last about 15 minutes, in part because the government would not be fighting alone, as many Americans would side with it (as happened in the Civil War) against those who want to tear the country apart over what would be seen as a self-serving issue.
So personally, I wouldn't recommend it, and in any case I am pretty sure that my first point is more important - these folks are cowards.
But let's go to 3) just to put the final nail in:
3) Americans are armed to the teeth as DoctorKz points out. Having arms has not gotten them the job security people have in Germany, France or Italy where you can't just fire people without taking them to court and showing just cause. It has not won them the right to go to the doctor or the hospital even if their life is in danger as everyone in every other Western democracy has including the one just to the North and the one I live in. It has not won them rising wages, since wages have been stagnant since 1973 for the majority of workers. It has not led to less inequality. It has not prevented us from having the highest incarcerated population in the world. It hasn't prevented small business from getting eaten alive by the Walmarts, fast food and other chains and shopping mall businesses of the country. It did not prevent the Patriot Act, the TARP, the writing of the bankruptcy laws directly by the credit card companies, against consumer interests, the use of our young people as cannon fodder in Iraq and Afghanistan or Libya, against all reason or the interests of the American people, it hasn't prevented college tuition, which is unknown outside of the US, UK and one or two other countries from becoming impossible to afford or putting whole generations into student debt bondage, nor prevented our fellow citizens of color from being routinely harassed, arrested and shot by police without just cause....in short, the guns are fricking useless. People all over the Western world have rights we don't have, and they got them without guns.
Show me a place where people did not get fired by their boss in the US because he or she knew the employees were armed, or where people were not turned away from the hospital because they lacked insurance, something that does not even exist in most of these countries because health care is a right won without arms, etc. and I will admit that the guns are actually for some social use.
Someone wants to hunt? Great. Someone wants to pretend that they own guns because they are preparing to fight Armageddon against the US government to protect rights they don't even have but could have if they actually fought for the right causes in the right way as other citizens of democratic countries have? well, for that we have a saying in New Jersey - get the f ...outa here !