2nd Amendment--applicable how?

[Inquartata]

Specifically we are discussing "tyranny". Though tyrannies can be freely elected, any government that isn't freely elected is, a priori, a tyranny.

With respect, that is not part of any definition of the term "tyranny", with the possible exception of your personal one, which you cannot expect the rest of us to adopt. A tyranny is simply any polity in which absolute rule is vested in one person, with the added modern connotation that the resulting rule be oppressive, unjust or cruel. The method by which power is vested in that one person is immaterial, and "not freely elected" isn't in there anywhere, either...

I believe the guns add to the problem, not to the solution. At the very least they are an impediment to finding and excising the root problem.

Which problem, exactly?

[Inquartata]

You are lumping dis-similar things in the hope that someone will be reluctant to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

It's Jbirch's thesis that there can be no "benign" use of ammunition because it's only use is to be fired from a gun. This implies that no firing of a gun can be benign; if it can, then it follows logically that the ammunition thus used too can be. I merely provided clear examples of sorts of firings which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be characterized as malign.

False dichotomy, perhaps?

Reductio ad absurdum, rather.

Your postition, then, seems to be that it's a package deal--we must accept the malign with the benign. Is that it?

As indeed we do with every other right. We accept the speech of the David Dukes and the Louis Farrakhans, however odious, as a condition of the First Amendment. The guilty benefit as much or more from the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as the innocent. Every right worth preserving has a cost. So yes, alas, it's a package deal: the abuses of the Second Amendment are the price we pay for the preservation of its benefits to the polity and individual law-abiding citizens. Prior restraint would is worse than useless, because it merely attenuates the benign without curtailing the malign uses...indeed, there is a case to be made that it encourages the latter.

[lochinvar]

(snip) So yes, alas, it's a package deal: the abuses of the Second Amendment are the price we pay for the preservation of its benefits to the polity and individual law-abiding citizens.

Actually, I have yet to hear a list of said 'benefits'--other than the one that claims that "an armed citizenry will prevent tyranny", which is patently false.

Care to list the others?

[Inquartata]

No need, because your declaring that one "patently false" ex cathedra does not make it so.

[lochinvar]

Leave that one aside. Humor me by listing the others.

We can always come back to that one.

[jeff]

I think we can eliminate "an armed citizenry will prevent tyranny" through "proof by contradiction"/ There are countries with well armed citizenries yet are tyrannies, QED it doesn't prevent tyranny.

I'd like to hear the benefits too.

[Soldier]

Show me any unarmed citizenry that's ever prevented tyranny - my point being that while arms may not guarantee freedom, they are a prerequisite.

[Drifter]

Show me any unarmed citizenry that's ever prevented tyranny - my point being that while arms may not guarantee freedom, they are a prerequisite.

I am not certain enough of this historical information to include any snide remarks, nor do I have the typical link to provide but I believe a little research would show that in fact the French Revolution was begun by a citizenry that was not allowed to own weapons. Not really of all that much relevence to the entire thread, but...

[Schiavona]

I'd like to hear the benefits too.

Supposedly 1,000,000 crimes a year are prevented in the US by citizens defending themselves with guns. I say supposedly because how do you measure a non-event? Lott and Kleck, 'More Guns, Less Crime', float this figure, but really-a million?

Even so, I figure if somebody is kicking my door in or jumping me in the street all bets are off and if I don't have a gun, I damn sure would want a gun! The truth, as I see it, is that people do sucessfully defend themselves using guns, more than unsucessfully. That's enough benefit for me.

Though, if anyone would care to explain the benefits (if any) of owning cars and booze and why their detremints are outweighed by said benefits, I'm willing to listen.

[jeff]

Show me any unarmed citizenry that's ever prevented tyranny - my point being that while arms may not guarantee freedom, they are a prerequisite.

Mahatma Gandhi, and his followers. Martin Luther King, and his followers, in obtaining freedom in this country. Stronger cases than _preventing_ since in both cases they ended already-existing oppression.

[jeff]

Supposedly 1,000,000 crimes a year are prevented in the US by citizens defending themselves with guns. I say supposedly because how do you measure a non-event? Lott and Kleck, 'More Guns, Less Crime', float this figure, but really-a million?

Yeah, I want a little more substantiation of that, too.

Even so, I figure if somebody is kicking my door in or jumping me in the street all bets are off and if I don't have a gun, I damn sure would want a gun! The truth, as I see it, is that people do sucessfully defend themselves using guns, more than unsucessfully. That's enough benefit for me.

Then let's add up all the occasions, plus and minus: crimes prevented due to fear of gun owner, gang shootings, crimes elevated to homicide from non-lethal because guns were present, arguments fights that became lethal because guns were there (and otherwise would have been a punch in the nose). If there were a net social benefit, then I imagine I'd be for it too, but my estimate is that guns increase overall mortality (including to non-crooks) rather than decrease it.

Though, if anyone would care to explain the benefits (if any) of owning cars and booze and why their detremints are outweighed by said benefits, I'm willing to listen.

You're right: Cars are bad, especially combined with booze!

[Soldier]

I am not certain enough of this historical information to include any snide remarks, nor do I have the typical link to provide but I believe a little research would show that in fact the French Revolution was begun by a citizenry that was not allowed to own weapons. Not really of all that much relevence to the entire thread, but...

...and then continued by a citizenry that obviously obtained them.

[Soldier]

Mahatma Gandhi, and his followers. Martin Luther King, and his followers, in obtaining freedom in this country. Stronger cases than _preventing_ since in both cases they ended already-existing oppression.

There were armed revolts going on at the same time as Ghandi's peaceful protests. Not to mention an already over-tasked empire that was just getting sick of the situation.

King was peaceful, yes. But he already lived in a free country.

[jeff]

There were armed revolts going on at the same time as Ghandi's peaceful protests. Not to mention an already over-tasked empire that was just getting sick of the situation.

I suggest you read some history on this. Gandhi's movement was what made independence happen, not armed insurrection, and it was a long struggle that didn't "just happen" after WW II. BTW: Gandhi would fast when violence was committed by any party against any other party.

King was peaceful, yes. But he already lived in a free country.

Boy oh boy are you off-base. No, no, no: not for people of color. It was our own version of apartheid. Maybe even before you read on Indian history you read a little about our own.

[Soldier]

I've read Indian history. And while Ghandi was opposed to the violence, that is not to say it did no good for the cause.

And while the same freedoms were not extended to blacks, the fact remains that the national guard was not simply sent in to mow everybody down.

King's campaign worked because it struck true with Americans, and American voices insisted things change. Had it been someplace like Iraq, he would have been immediately and brutally destroyed, and it wouldn't matter who it struck true with - they would be silent in fear.

[jeff]

For the first part: I think you're quite mistaken. Read _before_ the last few years, as the nationalistic movement built up from the early part of the century. The non-violent movement made it morally untenable for the status quo to continue.

The second part : first, you started with an obviously false statement - let's get that straight.. This was definitely not a free country for black people. Second, MLK showed that non-violent resistance was the answer: do you think it would have worked if there had been armed insurrection? Then the national guard _would_ have been sent in to shoot (as in fact did happen in the riots). This is not ancient history for me that I read out of a book: I remember Watts and the other cities in 1968, and I remember the Panthers and Stokely.

Besides: you asked for a "for instance", and you got it. What's the problem?

[Soldier]

I'm saying that the first instance does not apply, since there were armed components of resistance at the same time. The second instance also does not apply, since it was taking place under a democratic government, and a country that was free for the majority of its citizens. This is quite a different case from a despotic regime where it's not free for anybody.

[Inquartata]

A true tyranny does not quail from the most barbaric acts, on a large scale if necessary, to control its subjects. Neither the British nor American governments qualify on this basis; they would go only so far with violent suppression, because at base they were decent and moral and not prepared to pursue measures in extremis to maintain order. Only against such states can peaceful resistance succeed. Against true tyranny it ends up crushed beneath the treads of tanks and languishing in gulags...

Of course, sometimes armed resistance does so as well: Hungary in 1956, the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943. But of the two only armed resistance stands any sort of chance against a truly ruthless oppressor. Gandhi and King were fortunate in their choices of adversaries, that is all.

[Soldier]

Thank you, again, for restating more clearly and concisely what I've been trying to say.