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Automatics are still illegal in the United States, barring a rather expensive permit, and in general you can only buy one of the automatics already in circulation. Semi-automatic rifles are, of course, still legal, but I'm pretty sure aren't what you're referring to.

What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

It is a question I am not sure about - on one hand, they do not harm anyone else if you decide to use them, but on the other hand the drug dealers are absolute dicks who like to trick people into becoming addicted (and once you are hooked it is damn hard to get off it, even if you want to).

State-owned drug-selling might work, but drugs being legal still means someone clearly addicted who wants but can't stop can't be arrested and given help.

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

It is a question I am not sure about - on one hand, they do not harm anyone else if you decide to use them, but on the other hand the drug dealers are absolute dicks who like to trick people into becoming addicted (and once you are hooked it is damn hard to get off it, even if you want to).

State-owned drug-selling might work, but drugs being legal still means someone clearly addicted who wants but can't stop can't be arrested and given help.

We already have, at least in the US, a widespread epidemic of addictive prescription drugs being used for recreational purposes that has created criminal enterprises built on the black market for prescription drugs. It could be well argued that the national legalization of a recreational drug like marijuana would decrease crime and other negative social hazards whereas we already suffer terrible consequences for legal opiates.

 Ashiraya wrote:

And before someone pulls up the car analogy, when was the last time someone tried to rob you by running you over with a car?

It does happen unfortunately...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/oldham-pensioner-manchester-run-over-own-car-tricked-robbery-a6993626.html

As far as drugs go, when you start talking about Meth and heroine you see addicts who need to fuel their addiction, and usually can no longer afford to. That leads to criminal activity. I would not be in favor of legalizing these substances purely on the negative effects it creates on the families and neighborhoods where these substances already run rampant. Its great for the pushers, but the impact is far reaching outside of just the user and pusher.

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

It is a question I am not sure about - on one hand, they do not harm anyone else if you decide to use them, but on the other hand the drug dealers are absolute dicks who like to trick people into becoming addicted (and once you are hooked it is damn hard to get off it, even if you want to).

State-owned drug-selling might work, but drugs being legal still means someone clearly addicted who wants but can't stop can't be arrested and given help.

My personal opinion is that sure, if you want to fill your body with stuff, go for it.

Freedom of choice always, NEVER freedom from consequences.

You hurt yourself or others while under the influence, consequences should be severe. In the case of you hurting yourself zero tax dollars should go towards making you well again. If your insurance company drops you or massively raises your rates because you use/abuse certain drugs, so be it. If your employer fires you for using/abusing certain drugs, so be it. Mitigating consequences rewards bad behavior. Allow folks to suffer the full weight of the consequences of their choices.

As for the question in the OP, freedom should never trump 'safety'. Honestly I'm not sure what 'safety' can actually be increased anywhere near the levels I would consider giving up even minor freedoms for. The US 4th Amendment for example. LEAs and Big Gov't politicians want me to believe that by putting massive restrictions on the 4th amendment they can increase my safety. Yet organizations like the TSA cost us a gak ton and really don't do anything but inconvenience travelers while violating their 4th amendment rights.

Story came out about a lady (US citizen) crossing back into the US from Mexico who was massively violated ( http://www.stripes.com/news/us/after-illegal-body-cavity-search-us-to-pay-victim-475-000-1.420298 ). Do we really want more of that? Yeah, she won a lawsuit after 3 years. Was any gak bag prosecuted, or even fired? And yet tax payers are out almost half a million bucks plus still pays the salaries of the crap bags that did this. Giving more power to Big Gov't is generally not the answer, especially when that power means less freedom for individuals.

 CptJake wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

It is a question I am not sure about - on one hand, they do not harm anyone else if you decide to use them, but on the other hand the drug dealers are absolute dicks who like to trick people into becoming addicted (and once you are hooked it is damn hard to get off it, even if you want to).

State-owned drug-selling might work, but drugs being legal still means someone clearly addicted who wants but can't stop can't be arrested and given help.

My personal opinion is that sure, if you want to fill your body with stuff, go for it.

Freedom of choice always, NEVER freedom from consequences.

You hurt yourself or others while under the influence, consequences should be severe. In the case of you hurting yourself zero tax dollars should go towards making you well again. If your insurance company drops you or massively raises your rates because you use/abuse certain drugs, so be it. If your employer fires you for using/abusing certain drugs, so be it. Mitigating consequences rewards bad behavior. Allow folks to suffer the full weight of the consequences of their choices.

While I generally agree with your sentiment here, there are a multitude of things that can affect our daily lives. Smoking, eating too much/not enough, drinking, sports, RVing ATVing, too much/not enough sun, many many choices we make can result in needing medical aid, time off work, or other means of mitigating consequences.

We are a herd species, we rely on each other for help now and again.

 sebster wrote:
Security vs Liberty is a hopelessly vague question that invites answers based entirely on ideology. To get actual useful answers you need to get in to the specifics of individual issues, and then in to the detail of specific proposals for handling those issues.

What people forget is that when you get in to the specifics of actual policy proposals the trade off becomes minimal or even disappears. In many cases you will lose almost no liberty for the improvement in security, in many other cases the cost in liberty will be great for little to no increase in security. But of course, figuring that out requires actually finding out the specifics of the current case and how the proposal might change. Which is a lot of work. Instead people argue about the abstract, a debate that liberty is geared to win, and they miss the reality that in the real world you can lots of liberty and lots of security if you just get the policies right.

but that sounds hard! Just shouting your favorite arguments gleaned from a gun control debate is way more fun.

tneva82 wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

No. Criminals in countries with tight gun regulations can still get guns, or other weapons. If you wish to be at a disadvantage when confronted by an assailant (or multiple assailants) that is your choice. Just because you do not personally agree with something you are again ignoring the preponderance of evidence that the overwhelming majority of firearms are owned and used safely. So what else would you like to prohibit because of a statistically small problem, or that you find personally disagreeable?

Do they get fully automated military grade weapons just like that? If yes why in stricter countries weapons actually used tend to be less lethal than in more liberal gun country...

There's scale of damage somebody can do with non-automated rifle than fully automated assault rifle.

Where one needs assault rifles anyway for normal? Not good for hunting for starters...And one can't use less lethal gun for target practicing? Assault rifles aren't good guns for accuracy shooting competitions either...

A number of points here. Automatic weapons arent available just off the rack in the US, there is a limited supply, the newest of which is 30 years old, and the cheapest of which are about double that age and about $8k, with something like a real AK47 drug out of the mud in Vietnam going for close to $30k.

One will notice that more people have been slain in Europe by fully automatic weapons (where they are totally illegal) than in the US in attacks on civilians over the last few decades.

They also arent necessarily inaccurate or bad hunting weapons. An off the rack AK is perfectly accurate for hunting out to ~200m. People can get AR15's down to sub MoA accuracy (significantly more accurate than what is required of most designated marskmen rifles) with quality parts. These are perfectly serviceable sport and hunting weapons.

Likewise, such weapons dont exist just for those activities.

Additionally, fully automatic weapons arent that much more deadly than semiauto weapons, if we're ralking a shooting at a club or school, it wont make a difference to the bodycount really, rather the difference is more felt in force on force engagements, organized groups engagine in combat where things like suppressing fire and the need to snap a burst off at a target visible for only a split second come into play far more.

While freedoms is good at what point it becomes freedom just for sake of freedom?

is that a bad thing?

Why your average Joe needs to be able to buy military grade assault rifles without any problems?

at what point does a weapon become "military grade"? Whats the difference between a "military grade" weapon and a "civilian" weapon? This is a recent distinction that didnt exist until a few decades ago.

Grenades? Anti tank missiles? Bombs? Stealth bomber with nuclear warhead? If one's got enough money why shouldn't he be allowed to get those as well?

Mostly such weapons are beyond the means of 99.9%+ of the population, so its an exercise in hypotheticals largely. Many of these items are not something a single individual can operate solo, and are expensive not only to acquire, but to supply and transport as well. You can buy a T55 tank for about $40k for instance, but transporting and housing it, and then mainting it, is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and require multiple people to operate. That said, in the US, there are private collections of such things, and nobody is using them to harm anyone. There's several hundred anti tank cannons on the US market. Are they a safety issue? It doesnt appear to be so.

Nuclear warheads are so beyond the resources of an individual or even most large organizations that we can probably safely dismiss them.

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

It is a question I am not sure about - on one hand, they do not harm anyone else if you decide to use them, but on the other hand the drug dealers are absolute dicks who like to trick people into becoming addicted (and once you are hooked it is damn hard to get off it, even if you want to).

State-owned drug-selling might work, but drugs being legal still means someone clearly addicted who wants but can't stop can't be arrested and given help.

I personally am hugely in favor of decriminalization. There are a number of legislative answers to poor sales tactics and various control methods out there to ensure safety. The cannabis shop by my place basically operates its retail area like a fine winery except no sampling and you have to show ID to get in the door.

There's also the option of decriminalizing possession and but not manufacture, so you work to suppress the supply as much as possible without throwing huge numbers of people in prison just for using.

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

It is a question I am not sure about - on one hand, they do not harm anyone else if you decide to use them, but on the other hand the drug dealers are absolute dicks who like to trick people into becoming addicted (and once you are hooked it is damn hard to get off it, even if you want to).

State-owned drug-selling might work, but drugs being legal still means someone clearly addicted who wants but can't stop can't be arrested and given help.

They do harm others.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/duc.cfm

15% of inmates in 2004 committed violent crimes to fuel their drug habits. Then you've got a whole other slew of crimes committed.

 djones520 wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

It is a question I am not sure about - on one hand, they do not harm anyone else if you decide to use them, but on the other hand the drug dealers are absolute dicks who like to trick people into becoming addicted (and once you are hooked it is damn hard to get off it, even if you want to).

State-owned drug-selling might work, but drugs being legal still means someone clearly addicted who wants but can't stop can't be arrested and given help.

They do harm others.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/duc.cfm

15% of inmates in 2004 committed violent crimes to fuel their drug habits. Then you've got a whole other slew of crimes committed.

Meth is a hell of a drug.

there are certainly some types that really dont need to be cat 1

but there are plenty of drugs that do significantly more damage to human society than guns.

specifically talking about alcohol

actually i cant say deaths since i didn't actually research it. but doing quite a lot more harm is still correct, mentally and to those around them that doesn't just involve violence.

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, in the US, there are private collections of such things, and nobody is using them to harm anyone. There's several hundred anti tank cannons on the US market. Are they a safety issue? It doesnt appear to be so.

It absolutely is a safety issue. For example, you can get a MiG-21 for about $200k, or a MiG-17 for a mere $140k. Or if you're not such a fan of the Soviet stuff you can get a nice four-pack of Saab Drakens for $900k or best offer. But you're going to need a lot of training to fly them legally, and you're going to find some rather heavy restrictions on where and how you can fly them (TL;DR: lots of paperwork, and not over populated areas). Why? Because before those restrictions were imposed there was a rather ugly history of unqualified pilots with lots of money buying old military aircraft and crashing them, and often taking people on the ground with them. And I don't think any reasonable person could argue that this policy is a bad one.

Nuclear warheads are so beyond the resources of an individual or even most large organizations that we can probably safely dismiss them.

Note that this is primarily because of incredibly strict control over assembled warheads, the material required to make nuclear weapons, and any of the industrial components you'd need. In a hypothetical world where nuclear weapons were considered a human right and none of those laws and treaties existed we'd probably have a very different situation.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, in the US, there are private collections of such things, and nobody is using them to harm anyone. There's several hundred anti tank cannons on the US market. Are they a safety issue? It doesnt appear to be so.

It absolutely is a safety issue. For example, you can get a MiG-21 for about $200k, or a MiG-17 for a mere $140k. Or if you're not such a fan of the Soviet stuff you can get a nice four-pack of Saab Drakens for $900k or best offer. But you're going to need a lot of training to fly them legally, and you're going to find some rather heavy restrictions on where and how you can fly them (TL;DR: lots of paperwork, and not over populated areas). Why? Because before those restrictions were imposed there was a rather ugly history of unqualified pilots with lots of money buying old military aircraft and crashing them, and often taking people on the ground with them. And I don't think any reasonable person could argue that this policy is a bad one.

I think the distinction is that merely possessing those planes isn't a safety issue, as it's simply sitting in the hanger.

But, if one were to try to fly it, of course it's a safety issue as the owner would need to follow all regulations and paper work.

Nuclear warheads are so beyond the resources of an individual or even most large organizations that we can probably safely dismiss them.

Note that this is primarily because of incredibly strict control over assembled warheads, the material required to make nuclear weapons, and any of the industrial components you'd need. In a hypothetical world where nuclear weapons were considered a human right and none of those laws and treaties existed we'd probably have a very different situation.

There is a strict prohibition of possessing nukes. What get's hairy is if some genius use commerical products to build 'at home' the various nuclear reactors, as it has dual use implications.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
That said, in the US, there are private collections of such things, and nobody is using them to harm anyone. There's several hundred anti tank cannons on the US market. Are they a safety issue? It doesnt appear to be so.

It absolutely is a safety issue. For example, you can get a MiG-21 for about $200k, or a MiG-17 for a mere $140k. Or if you're not such a fan of the Soviet stuff you can get a nice four-pack of Saab Drakens for $900k or best offer. But you're going to need a lot of training to fly them legally, and you're going to find some rather heavy restrictions on where and how you can fly them (TL;DR: lots of paperwork, and not over populated areas). Why? Because before those restrictions were imposed there was a rather ugly history of unqualified pilots with lots of money buying old military aircraft and crashing them, and often taking people on the ground with them. And I don't think any reasonable person could argue that this policy is a bad one.

As Whembly noted, I was primarily talking about possession as opposed to usage. There's a difference between being able to possess something and the ability to use it however you want. These are different things. I wont argue that restrictions on usage are reasonable.

Note that this is primarily because of incredibly strict control over assembled warheads, the material required to make nuclear weapons, and any of the industrial components you'd need. In a hypothetical world where nuclear weapons were considered a human right and none of those laws and treaties existed we'd probably have a very different situation.

Even without legal restrictions on anything, the infrastructure you need to obtain and refine the materials, and to assemble them into a weapon, is mind bogglingly massive, all the way through the entire supply chain starting with raw resource extraction. These are inherently weapons of the state, with materials that are inherently dangerous to be near simply in their natural state even before being assembled into a weapon and massively expensive and complex to produce even rudimentary examples.

 Vaktathi wrote:

As Whembly noted, I was primarily talking about possession as opposed to usage. There's a difference between being able to possess something and the ability to use it however you want. These are different things. I wont argue that restrictions on usage are reasonable.

Nobody who buy a gun plans to end up on the "stupid people with guns" list and, of course, all of them think of themselves as responsible human beings who would never do that type of stuff but just having a gun in your home is a health risk. Ownership results in unintended usage and overall it leads to more death and injury than not having a gun in your home even when people know what they are doing (from here):

Having a gun in your home significantly increases your risk of death — and that of your spouse and children.

And it doesn’t matter how the guns are stored or what type or how many guns you own.

If you have a gun, everybody in your home is more likely than your non-gun-owning neighbors and their families to die in a gun-related accident, suicide or homicide.

Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that having a gun in your house reduces your risk of being a victim of a crime. Nor does it reduce your risk of being injured during a home break-in.

“For example, a large percentage of homicides — and especially homicides in the home — occur during altercations over matters such as love, money, and domestic problems, involving acquaintances, neighbors, lovers, and family members; often the assailant or victim has been drinking. Only a small minority of homicides appear to be the carefully planned acts of individuals with a single-minded intention to kill. Most gun killings are indistinguishable from nonfatal gun shootings; it is just a question of the caliber of the gun, whether a vital organ is hit, and how much time passes before medical treatment arrives.”

“However, for most contemporary Americans, the scientific studies suggest that the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit,” he adds. “There are no credible studies that indicate otherwise.”

Another article, and there's this

:

I think they have monthly summaries. There are so many more and it's literary incredible how people are injuring and killing other people. When I found the link on twitter I thought that was a parody account.

I can't wait for all the gung-ho war veterans who roam the OT to tell me why this is false or otherwise irrelevant.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Spoiler:

I can't wait for all the gung-ho war veterans who roam the OT to tell me why this is false or otherwise irrelevant.

Tell you what, give me a link to the actual news story, or better yet, the police report, rather than a picture put out by a anti-gun group, and then we can discuss it.

Start with gak for data, you have exactly that, gak. And that is what you are starting with.

I literally typed "defense contractor god told me to shoot stranger" and got the first result.

It took more typing to complain there was no source than to find one.

Mario wrote:

Spoiler:

 Vaktathi wrote:

As Whembly noted, I was primarily talking about possession as opposed to usage. There's a difference between being able to possess something and the ability to use it however you want. These are different things. I wont argue that restrictions on usage are reasonable.

Nobody who buy a gun plans to end up on the "stupid people with guns" list and, of course, all of them think of themselves as responsible human beings who would never do that type of stuff but just having a gun in your home is a health risk. Ownership results in unintended usage and overall it leads to more death and injury than not having a gun in your home even when people know what they are doing (from here):

Having a gun in your home significantly increases your risk of death — and that of your spouse and children.

And it doesn’t matter how the guns are stored or what type or how many guns you own.

If you have a gun, everybody in your home is more likely than your non-gun-owning neighbors and their families to die in a gun-related accident, suicide or homicide.

Furthermore, there is no credible evidence that having a gun in your house reduces your risk of being a victim of a crime. Nor does it reduce your risk of being injured during a home break-in.

“For example, a large percentage of homicides — and especially homicides in the home — occur during altercations over matters such as love, money, and domestic problems, involving acquaintances, neighbors, lovers, and family members; often the assailant or victim has been drinking. Only a small minority of homicides appear to be the carefully planned acts of individuals with a single-minded intention to kill. Most gun killings are indistinguishable from nonfatal gun shootings; it is just a question of the caliber of the gun, whether a vital organ is hit, and how much time passes before medical treatment arrives.”

“However, for most contemporary Americans, the scientific studies suggest that the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit,” he adds. “There are no credible studies that indicate otherwise.”

Another article, and there's this

:

I think they have monthly summaries. There are so many more and it's literary incredible how people are injuring and killing other people. When I found the link on twitter I thought that was a parody account.

Mario wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

As Whembly noted, I was primarily talking about possession as opposed to usage. There's a difference between being able to possess something and the ability to use it however you want. These are different things. I wont argue that restrictions on usage are reasonable.

Nobody who buy a gun plans to end up on the "stupid people with guns" list and, of course, all of them think of themselves as responsible human beings who would never do that type of stuff but just having a gun in your home is a health risk. Ownership results in unintended usage and overall it leads to more death and injury than not having a gun in your home even when people know what they are doing

Sure, but at the same time we can point out that having a bathtub or pool increases your risk of drowning as well regardless of whether you are a good swimmer or not, or how having a car leads to a greater chance of being in a car accident. Greater exposure to certain things means greater risk when things go wrong. I won't debate that fundamental truism, I'll concede it right here.

Ultimately however, the scale of the risk is what's important, we want to look at the actual rates of harm and death from owning cars, guns, pools, etc. When it comes to things like firearms, the number of people killed in negligent discharges is relatively small. In 2013 there were ~500 deaths due to negligent discharges/accidents with firearms, or about 1.33 per day . Now, on its own, that number may look very large for some, however, when we're talking a nation of almost 320 million, and roughly as many guns, it's a statistically irrelevant number of people, or about 0.019253% of yearly US deaths from all causes (or, another way, if you're one of the 1-in-~123 people that will die in any given year in the US, out of *that* you have about a 1-in-5200 chance of being killed by a firearms accident). It's also about 1/6th of the rate of accidental drownings in the US, which average ~10 per day or ~3500 per year. Likewise, if we look at the types of weapons that people call for banning or restricting the most, usually some sort of rifle, the total number of people killed by *all* rifles (everything from pappy's old bolt action .22 to Kalashnikov rifles) in any circumstance is ~270 and dropping every year on record despite record high proliferation, which would seem to suggest that mere possession of these items is not a terribly great risk.

Now, if we talk about getting into misuse of firearms, then we have laws to control that and most people won't disagree that at least some limits on usage aren't exactly a violation of one's rights. If you shoot someone in anger, that's not an acceptable usage and you will face charges for that, if you just start shooting in your back yard in an urban or suburban environment then you're going to face charges for that, and I don't think most people have a problem with that. That said, there's a huge amount of debate as to where lines may be, but there's doesn't seem to be a huge correlation between hugely restrictive usage laws and lax ones in regards to firearms deaths/injuries. Where I live, it's perfectly legal to carry a firearm (any firearm, be it a musket or a belt fed automatic weapon provided it's legally owned under Federal law) in public while under the influence and no restrictions on what you can own. Really, I'm not joking. By the same token, we can look at cities where firearms have enormous numbers of restrictions on possession and usage, like San Francisco or Chicago, and these cities have far higher rates of firearm problems despite their much greater regulation, leading to the conclusion that the problem probably isn't possession of guns in and of themselves.

“For example, a large percentage of homicides — and especially homicides in the home — occur during altercations over matters such as love, money, and domestic problems, involving acquaintances, neighbors, lovers, and family members; often the assailant or victim has been drinking. Only a small minority of homicides appear to be the carefully planned acts of individuals with a single-minded intention to kill. Most gun killings are indistinguishable from nonfatal gun shootings; it is just a question of the caliber of the gun, whether a vital organ is hit, and how much time passes before medical treatment arrives.”

“However, for most contemporary Americans, the scientific studies suggest that the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit,” he adds. “There are no credible studies that indicate otherwise.”

Another article, and there's this

Spoiler:

:

Most of these things are highly illegal in the first place and would result in at least one, if not multiple felony charges. Sure, if they didn't have guns, one could probably make the argument that fewer people would die due to incidents like these, however we can't quantify how many people that would be, especially given that, in the US, even if you remove all firearms related injuries, deaths, crime, etc, the US still has a notably higher rate of violence/assault/murder/etc than similarly developed nations. Likewise, for each cherry picked example of someone doing something stupid or evil with a firearm, there's cherry picked examples of someone defending themselves with a firearm. We've had two incidents in the last month or so where I live of intruders being shot by homeowners.

I think they have monthly summaries. There are so many more and it's literary incredible how people are injuring and killing other people. When I found the link on twitter I thought that was a parody account.

People have been gakheads for millenia and sadly it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon. The good part is that the vast majority of people don't actually encounter such events in their own lives.

 Ashiraya wrote:
What about drugs? Do you think recreational drugs should be legal?

Certain drugs, absolutely. Legalized, taxed, and regulated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Is this now a gun debate thread, and the Moderator warning rescinded?

No, it isn't. Thanks for checking.

Leave the gun debate alone or I'm going to lock the thread and hit people with warnings

At the risk of treading into potentially unfriendly waters, it would seem most of the conversation is related to the topic at hand of safety vs rights and isn't stuck just on firearms as we've addressed other things as well. Firearms, along with drugs, being one of the largest areas where the debate on safety vs rights takes place, it would seem germane to the topic at hand as a point of discussion. That said, I'll leave it if it's really felt to be sidetracking.

 Polonius wrote:
but that sounds hard! Just shouting your favorite arguments gleaned from a gun control debate is way more fun.

Yep. Although the twist this time is that instead of people making abstract posts about the abstract importance of liberty in the abstract, instead it's actually gone in to the specifics of one actual issue. That issue was gun control because this is dakka, of course.

I want the least amount of Security and the most amount of liberty. Because (if you chose) Liberty can also grant security.

I have the Liberty to carry a concealed weapon in most places. That is better security than I get from the Police.

I should be able to look at whatever I want on the net (barring child porn) without anyone knowing.

I should be able to do what I want in my house and on my private property without intervention or surveillance. As long as I am not violating someone else's rights.

Now to enter into the Social Contract I have to give up total freedom. We all do. But it should be the smallest concession possible.

 whembly wrote:
I think the distinction is that merely possessing those planes isn't a safety issue, as it's simply sitting in the hanger.

But, if one were to try to fly it, of course it's a safety issue as the owner would need to follow all regulations and paper work.

Imagine the outrage if the government passed a law that you could possess an AR-15, but if you want to use it you're going to have to meet a long list of requirements that hardly anyone can afford to even consider. Putting heavy restrictions on the use of something is effectively the same as putting those restrictions on owning it. And virtually everyone is happy with this situation. You don't see complaints about how the right to own a MiG-21 is being sacrificed in the name of safety and anyone who can afford to should have the freedom to fly one. It's just understood that this freedom is not something that is in the best interest of society, and safety takes priority.

So, the conclusion here is that almost everyone, other than tinfoil hat extremists like the sovereign citizen "movement", is ok with the idea of sacrificing rights in the name of safety. There is no general-principle objection to the idea, only arguing about which particular rights should be sacrificed.

I know a chap who had a few things to say on the matter...

“You see, I believe in freedom, Mr. Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will, of course, protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”

“In his Thoughts, which I have always considered to fare badly in translation, Bouffant says that intervening in order to prevent a murder is to curtail the freedom of the murderer and yet that freedom, by definition, is natural and universal, without condition,” said Vetinari. “[...] Mr. Gilt has studied his Bouffant but, I fear, failed to understand him. Freedom may be mankind’s natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling. On the other hand, Freidegger, in Modal Contextities, claims that all freedom is limited, artificial, and therefore illusory, a shared hallucination at best. No sane mortal is truly free, because true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes.

Having a very large government is a good thing. Consider healthcare. You do not want to get a bad illness and then head to a doctor who wants to save in on every cost possible when helping you (there is a reason conflict of interest is not a good thing in healthcare), nor do you want to pay a hideously expensive medical bill when you may be too sick to even work!

In essence, in Sweden you pay a bit more when you do not need that kind of help, in order to pay a lot less if are unfortunate enough to need it. Similar to insurance, really.

It is the same with prisons, and studying. I am heading to the university in one month and it is 100% free. I still do not have much in the way of credentials (that is why I am going to the university to begin with) and therefore I do not have an easy time finding a solid job, so naturally I do not mind not having to pay now and instead paying later on when I do have that job!

A free market is not at all without virtues and in many/most cases I do want it, though it really needs proper oversight. (Example: food industry. Free market is good here, sure, but it is also an industry with a lot of unpleasant things going on behind the scenes.) In some areas, however, the government would simply do the job better. In practice, the raw power of large corporations also means that free markets are not really that free.

 Vaktathi wrote:



One will notice that more people have been slain in Europe by fully automatic weapons (where they are totally illegal) than in the US in attacks on civilians over the last few decades.

A small correction, weapons of all classes were freely available in Belgium, Europe's biggest arms market, until 2006, and only last year the government started taking a harder stance on the ilegal markets. So for the longest time people could get almost anything in Belgium with only border controls by neighboring countries keeping the worst stuff out of circulation, IIRC it was a live and let "leave" situation when buying the smaller stuff with a kick call to the border with Germany for example with your description and your car plates if you went for something like a machine gun.
Spanish terrorist group ETA was caught by the French once, smuggling an AA missile out of Belgium back in the early 90s.

M.

 Miguelsan wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:



One will notice that more people have been slain in Europe by fully automatic weapons (where they are totally illegal) than in the US in attacks on civilians over the last few decades.

A small correction, weapons of all classes were freely available in Belgium, Europe's biggest arms market, until 2006, and only last year the government started taking a harder stance on the ilegal markets. So for the longest time people could get almost anything in Belgium with only border controls by neighboring countries keeping the worst stuff out of circulation, IIRC it was a live and let "leave" situation when buying the smaller stuff with a kick call to the border with Germany for example with your description and your car plates if you went for something like a machine gun.
Spanish terrorist group ETA was caught by the French once, smuggling an AA missile out of Belgium back in the early 90s.

M.

Miss the market in Liege you could get some awesome stuff there
The laws that are used for "Security" always end to be used on its own populace.