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 Torga_DW wrote:
I think part of the problem is the bill of rights. How many countries actually have such a thing built into their consitution? I'm seeing (google) 196 countries in the world and maybe 15 (tops) with an actual bill of rights. The perspective of someone who has assumed individual rights built into their governmental and legal systems is probably going to be different to someone who doesn't.

I don't think it's really about the explicit bill of rights. People in the US have been pretty apathetic about (or even strongly in favor of) things like the 4th and 5th amendment protections being weakened, and a lot of people eagerly celebrate weakening of the 1st amendment in situations like separation of church and state or obscenity laws. Gun control gets a lot of controversy because there are a lot of pro-gun people in the US, completely independent of what the constitution says. If attitudes in the US changed and most people were opposed to gun ownership the 2nd amendment would be changed or repealed to allow stricter gun control laws.

Also, don't confuse not having the specific method of listing rights that the US does with not having any individual rights.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:
I think you have to start by wanting a change. No one said it would be easy, it could take a hundred years, but it needs to start somewhere. The problem is there are a lot of people that are so caught up in the idea of someone taking their guns away, that they don't even want to look at the big picture.

But "wanting a change" is a bad way to start. I don't want change for the sake of change, I want good changes. And right now it isn't clear that stricter gun control laws (outside of a few obvious areas) would be productive change instead of just a way to congratulate ourselves that Something Is Being Done.

 Smacks wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Do you not think that the picture would look better, without those 11,068 deaths?

Of course it would, but how do you prevent them? Keep in mind that a gang member can still get an illegal gun even if guns are 100% banned, an abusive spouse can still use a different weapon, etc. It's not as easy as just saying "ban guns and those 11k people are still alive".

I think you have to start by wanting a change. No one said it would be easy, it could take a hundred years, but it needs to start somewhere. The problem is there are a lot of people that are so caught up in the idea of someone taking their guns away, that they don't even want to look at the big picture.

How are you sure that the people who don't want their guns taken away aren't looking at the big picture?

It's a way of thinking though, culture shapes perception. Focusing on laws and the consequences of breaking them is different to focusing on innate rights and the safeguards for keeping them. Especially when you apply this to young people going through school. Just saying this may be a factor in why some people are more casual about removing rights than others.

 Peregrine wrote:
But "wanting a change" is a bad way to start. I don't want change for the sake of change, I want good changes. And right now it isn't clear that stricter gun control laws (outside of a few obvious areas) would be productive change instead of just a way to congratulate ourselves that Something Is Being Done.

When I said "wanting change", I meant specifically: reducing gun crime, making it harder for criminals to obtain guns and ammunition, that kind of thing. I would agree that not all (perhaps few) gun control laws have been effective in bringing about that change. I would blame politics as much as anything else for the impotency of legislators. However, people saying "I don't want to be personally inconvenienced" and "this is my right" are perhaps not helping either, and might actually be compounding the problem.

 djones520 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Redcruisair wrote:
This line here sits poorly with me. Is one school shooting not one too many?

Saying it doesn’t matter, because the number of school shootings is low in comparison to other cases of deaths, doesn’t really make these horrible incidents any less bad. I mean for Christ sake, people have had their kids murdered in those shootings.

I don’t really care for the pro vs con gun debate in America, because it’s not my business to care about it. However, it does make my stomach churn a bit when people so causally hand wave away these tragic incidents as if they didn’t even matter.

It's not that school shootings don't matter, it's that you can't make policy decisions based on such rare events. When something happens so rarely you don't have enough information about what caused it and what you can do to prevent it, so any decisions you try to make as a result are blind guesses and/or emotional reactions. Gun control laws need to be based on common situations/events, not isolated tragedies that get the biggest headlines.

Damnit Peregrine, I really hate agreeing with you.

:slow clap:

Take a bow man!

And that's where it's important to know where that right came from: the threat of an oppressive government. It's one of the more important rights imo because it gives individual citizens the power to protect themselves against that threat. That's part of what being a democracy is about.

 Torga_DW wrote:
And that's where it's important to know where that right came from: the threat of an oppressive government. It's one of the more important rights imo because it gives individual citizens the power to protect themselves against that threat. That's part of what being a democracy is about.

Being a democracy is about having the power to change your government without having to resort to violence. Any country can change its government with enough firepower.

"Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla movement will experience great difficulties, as the possibilities for civil struggle have not yet been exhausted." - Che Guevara

As long as the government were to go through the act of elections then a sizeable portion of the population would oppose an armed uprising as the government would maintain that pretense of being legitimate and the result of the wishes of the people.

So I don't think this whole "guns to protect us from the tyrannical government" will go down as many believe. If the USA were to become a dictatorship, it won't be the kind that is stupid enough to openly show it. It would hide behind elections and the veil of democracy rather than go full Stalin.

Hell, it could already be one which plays the Republicans and Democrats off against each other whilst the Illuminati run the show in the shadows whilst the population is contented that their opinion is being heard and duly ignored

Being a democracy is about individual rights, that's one of the key points of a true democracy. The opposite end of the spectrum is socialism, where the individual is considered less important than the collective. In practice a nation will fall somewhere inbetween, but there always reaches a point where a country becomes clearly democratic or clearly socialist.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
And that's where it's important to know where that right came from: the threat of an oppressive government. It's one of the more important rights imo because it gives individual citizens the power to protect themselves against that threat. That's part of what being a democracy is about.

Being a democracy is about having the power to change your government without having to resort to violence. Any country can change its government with enough firepower.

And how was our Democracy founded?

 Smacks wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
But "wanting a change" is a bad way to start. I don't want change for the sake of change, I want good changes. And right now it isn't clear that stricter gun control laws (outside of a few obvious areas) would be productive change instead of just a way to congratulate ourselves that Something Is Being Done.

When I said "wanting change", I meant specifically: reducing gun crime, making it harder for criminals to obtain guns and ammunition, that kind of thing. I would agree that not all (perhaps few) gun control laws have been effective in bringing about that change. I would blame politics as much as anything else for the impotency of legislators. However, people saying "I don't want to be personally inconvenienced" and "this is my right" are perhaps not helping either, and might actually be compounding the problem.

Many Americans consider the eroding or removing of their rights to be much more than a personal inconvenience. Whether you agree with it or not, it is critical that anyone approaching this subject understands that.

Whether or not you agree that an armed rebellion at any point in the future would have any chance of success, it's not that difficult to see how the government attempting to remove or limit an individual right, put in place specifically to allow the people to resist a tyrannical government, could appear very dubious to law-abiding citizens.

 Torga_DW wrote:
Being a democracy is about individual rights, that's one of the key points of a true democracy. The opposite end of the spectrum is socialism, where the individual is considered less important than the collective. In practice a nation will fall somewhere inbetween, but there always reaches a point where a country becomes clearly democratic or clearly socialist.

Only from a certain point of view. Many in america would call european countries very socialist, due to socialised healthcare, welfare etc.

Those countries however will typically not view themselves as socialist rather than democratic.

For example, many of the scandinavian countries have socialised healthcare, a very effective welfare system and all funded through high taxation. Does that make them socialist? Those are programs which are clearly rooted in socialistic views of the community looking after those in need.

Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

 Torga_DW wrote:
Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

Part of the problem might be that "Socialism" is often treated like a way of selecting governments instead of it being a social and economic policy.

There is nothing about socialism that determines how governments are selected or run. You can have democracies with socialist policies, you can have dictatorships with socialist policies, you can have constitutional monarchies with socialist policies.

European countries having socialist policies doesn't make them cease to be a democracy.

 Torga_DW wrote:
Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

Except these countries are democracies.

You said there was a line between being a democracy and being socialist.

So are the countries of scandinavia democratic or socialist?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

Except these countries are democracies.

You said there was a line between being a democracy and being socialist.

So are the countries of scandinavia democratic or socialist?

They can be both. Socialism is an economic system, democracy is a political system. Just like you can have a country that is democratic and capitalist, or a country that is a democracy and socialist. This is a bit of an oversimplification as most countries are not 100% capitalist or socialist, but fall somewhere on the spectrum between the two.

The Scandinavian countries are quite socialist, and they are also democracies.

d-usa wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

Part of the problem might be that "Socialism" is often treated like a way of selecting governments instead of it being a social and economic policy.

There is nothing about socialism that determines how governments are selected or run. You can have democracies with socialist policies, you can have dictatorships with socialist policies, you can have constitutional monarchies with socialist policies.

European countries having socialist policies doesn't make them cease to be a democracy.

I agree. But a socialist policy is a socialist policy. When the majority of policies are socialist, its a good sign of a socialist country. The problem is when people attribute 'good' or 'bad' to these things - i happen to agree with socialized medicine, that doesn't mean its not a socialist policy. It is what it is, i'd rather be arguing over whether or not the individual policy/law/whatever is good or bad.

edit: the USSR had elections, but it was still considered a socialist nation (it was even in the name). Democracies require free elections, but having elections doesn't automatically create a democracy.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

Except these countries are democracies.

You said there was a line between being a democracy and being socialist.

So are the countries of scandinavia democratic or socialist?

I said most countries will fall inbetween. Its a sliding scale, not binary. But sooner or later you may end up at the one end of the scale or the other.

 Hordini wrote:
Many Americans consider the eroding or removing of their rights to be much more than a personal inconvenience. Whether you agree with it or not, it is critical that anyone approaching this subject understands that.

Whether or not you agree that an armed rebellion at any point in the future would have any chance of success, it's not that difficult to see how the government attempting to remove or limit an individual right, put in place specifically to allow the people to resist a tyrannical government, could appear very dubious to law-abiding citizens.

That is understandable. The problem seems to be that it is very difficult to attack "gun-crime" without inadvertently attacking gun rights. By the same measure, it is difficult to promote gun rights without inadvertently enabling gun-crime.

I don't really want to bash heads with people who enjoy target shooting or hunting as a hobby. Nor do I blame people for feeling they need a gun to defend themselves. However, if the streets really are that dangerous, then that suggests that there is a wider problem that needs addressing. Refusing to acknowledge that problem because of personal investment is unhelpful at best.

I understand the frustration gun owners must have when legislation appears to curtail rights while doing nothing to address real gun-crime. I imagine these dysfunctional laws are the proverbial microwaves designed by a committee. However, controlling the flow of weapons and ammunition seems like a good way of attacking illegal weapons. It would be nice if this could be done effectively without curtailing honest people's rights too much.

 Torga_DW wrote:

d-usa wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

Part of the problem might be that "Socialism" is often treated like a way of selecting governments instead of it being a social and economic policy.

There is nothing about socialism that determines how governments are selected or run. You can have democracies with socialist policies, you can have dictatorships with socialist policies, you can have constitutional monarchies with socialist policies.

European countries having socialist policies doesn't make them cease to be a democracy.

I agree. But a socialist policy is a socialist policy. When the majority of policies are socialist, its a good sign of a socialist country. The problem is when people attribute 'good' or 'bad' to these things - i happen to agree with socialized medicine, that doesn't mean its not a socialist policy. It is what it is, i'd rather be arguing over whether or not the individual policy/law/whatever is good or bad.

edit: the USSR had elections, but it was still considered a socialist nation (it was even in the name). Democracies require free elections, but having elections doesn't automatically create a democracy.

USSR was a socialist nation because they had socialist policies. Their form of government had nothing to do with that.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Torga_DW wrote:
Yes, it does. That's the definition of socialism. Whether or not it's considered 'good' or 'bad' is largely irrelevant - it's socialism.

Except these countries are democracies.

You said there was a line between being a democracy and being socialist.

So are the countries of scandinavia democratic or socialist?

I said most countries will fall inbetween. Its a sliding scale, not binary. But sooner or later you may end up at the one end of the scale or the other.

At this point I truly think that you don't realize that one is a system of selecting a government and one is a system of social and economic policies.

It's like saying that something can either be female or a horse, but you can't be both.

The two are not related, and you can be a democracy without socialist policies, you can be a dictatorship without socialist policies, you can be a democracy with socialist policies, and you can be a dictatorship with socialist policies.

Democracies don't prevent socialism and socialism doesn't prevent democracy.

 Smacks wrote:
Nor do I blame people for feeling they need a gun to defend themselves. However, if the streets really are that dangerous, then that suggests that there is a wider problem that needs addressing.

There's been plenty of times I've been walking through Camden or Ilford and would have felt MUCH safer if I was allowed to be armed and defend myself. There's bad spots in any country. It's only in the US that I've been able to proactively take steps to ensure I can properly protect myself and my family if some junkie/thief comes at us with a knife or a pistol.

Elections aren't the same as democracy. The ussr had elections, iran has elections, they are not democracies. Democracy is the focus on individual rights - as part of the democratic process you can give those rights away. When enough rights have been given away, you'll stop being a democracy.

 Smacks wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
But "wanting a change" is a bad way to start. I don't want change for the sake of change, I want good changes. And right now it isn't clear that stricter gun control laws (outside of a few obvious areas) would be productive change instead of just a way to congratulate ourselves that Something Is Being Done.

When I said "wanting change", I meant specifically: reducing gun crime, making it harder for criminals to obtain guns and ammunition, that kind of thing. I would agree that not all (perhaps few) gun control laws have been effective in bringing about that change. I would blame politics as much as anything else for the impotency of legislators. However, people saying "I don't want to be personally inconvenienced" and "this is my right" are perhaps not helping either, and might actually be compounding the problem.

The best way to stop Gun crime is to stop focusing on the "gun" and start focusing on "crime".

Crime is crime is crime. Doesn't matter if its committed with a gun, knife, baseball bat, weaponized weasels, etc... It has root causes in poverty and gang culture. Attack those if you are actually sincere about stopping crime. Otherwise, you're just attacking my civil liberties.

*not specifically addressed at you Smacks

 Torga_DW wrote:
Elections aren't the same as democracy. The ussr had elections, iran has elections, they are not democracies. Democracy is the focus on individual rights - as part of the democratic process you can give those rights away. When enough rights have been given away, you'll stop being a democracy.

Democracy definition:

government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

You won't stop being a democracy once some arbitrary amount of rights have been given away. You would only stop once the right to vote on those issues was taken away.

For example, if the people of fictitious Democritoria voted to have no free speech, make sex illegal and ban eating they would still be a democracy if they could vote to bring those rights back.

 Torga_DW wrote:
Elections aren't the same as democracy. The ussr had elections, iran has elections, they are not democracies. Democracy is the focus on individual rights - as part of the democratic process you can give those rights away. When enough rights have been given away, you'll stop being a democracy.

Democracy = people voting. That's really it. Nothing more and nothing less.
Then you can have a Direct Democracy where people vote directly on laws.
Or you can have a Representative Democracy where people vote for people that vote on laws.
Then you can have a Liberal Democracy where you have democracy in a system where the individual rights are protected by laws.
The US is a Liberal Democracy and Constitutional Republic where rights are granted and protected by our Constitution and laws are passed on the state and federal level via Representative Democracy as well as Direct Democracy at the state and local level. We don't vote for our President though, we vote for people that then vote for President!

You can have a form of democracy without rights, you can also have rights without democracy.

Then you can have Capitalism or Socialism, which have nothing to do with any of the above since neither are political systems.

You are mixing up a great many things that really don't have much to do with one another.

d-usa, did you know that the United States are a Republic and not a Democracy?

 MrDwhitey wrote:
d-usa, did you know that the United States are a Republic and not a Democracy?

Oh no you didn't!

 MrDwhitey wrote:
d-usa, did you know that the United States are a Republic and not a Democracy?

Abandon thread!

Someone pulled the Republic line.

 Alex C wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
Nor do I blame people for feeling they need a gun to defend themselves. However, if the streets really are that dangerous, then that suggests that there is a wider problem that needs addressing.

There's been plenty of times I've been walking through Camden or Ilford and would have felt MUCH safer if I was allowed to be armed and defend myself. There's bad spots in any country. It's only in the US that I've been able to proactively take steps to ensure I can properly protect myself and my family if some junkie/thief comes at us with a knife or a pistol.

I admit I have felt the same way. But the price of you being armed is that you are more likely to run into armed criminals. Unfortunately, having a gun doesn't ensure your safety. Someone could easily shoot you in the back and take your wallet, and even if you are threatened face to face, you would still be drawing against one or more people who have the drop on you. If a mugger is anticipating a weapon then they might just start shooting first (kind of like the police do).

What can you do?

Yes, i've read the wiki. I say again: USSR was not a democracy, Iran is not a democracy. It is not a case of people voting = democracy.

I think this is a better source of information: http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/democracy/human_rights.shtml

 Grey Templar wrote:
Abandon thread!

Someone pulled the Republic line.

Also, there are multiple pictures of your cat taking gak from no man...

Well, your cat == the cat of your avatar.