More Macaca Caca

[Doug]

A Parting Shot From George Allen



As a last little gift to America, Senator George Allen, who was narrowly defeated by James Webb this month, has introduced what may be his final piece of legislation: a bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in national parks. The argument behind the bill is that national park regulations unfairly strip many Americans of a right they may enjoy outside the parks. The bill has passed to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where we hope it will die the miserable death it deserves.

Read about it here.

[Hogeye]

... depriving an American of the right to carry a gun in public sounds, to some, as offensive as stripping him of the right to vote.

It's more like depriving him of the right of free speech. The right of self-defense is a basic individual right, like freedom of speech, not an procedural "right" of participation in a State.

FRT, I don't think the government should strip people of the right of self-defense or speech on government-claimed land. But of course private property owners have the right to make such conditions for guests on their property.

Of course, rights to me (and Spooner) are not something decreed by rulers or majorities or legislators; rights are derived by rationality and observation from the kind of critter man is. Rights are science-based, not faith-based.

[Dardedar]

rights are derived by rationality and observation from the kind of critter man is.

DAR
Seems man is the kind of critter that installs governments that make sensible laws about not allowing guns in parks (and schools etc.). The US is awash in guns and the public suffers because of this. We can know this scientifically.

D.
----------------
People killed by guns (1996)

2 people in New Zealand
15 in Japan
30 in Great Britain
106 in Canada
213 in Germany and...

9,390 in the United States.

[Doug]

People killed by guns (1996)

2 people in New Zealand
15 in Japan
30 in Great Britain
106 in Canada
213 in Germany and...

9,390 in the United States.

TYPICAL U.S. HOUSEHOLD:


"OK, dude, go ahead and answer the door."

[Hogeye]

People killed in the 20th century by their own governments after being disarmed by gun control laws: 170 million.

The crime/accident issues are inconsequential compared to the genocide issue. The 170 million does not include soldiers at war, but only non-combatants murdered by their own governments. Little known fact: the Nazi holocaust was the third largest genocide in the 20th century. Can you name #1 and #2?

An excellent documentary about genocide in the 20th century is Innocents Betrayed, put out by the JPFO, Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

[Doug]

People killed in the 20th century by their own governments after being disarmed by gun control laws: 170 million.

DOUG
Anyone who thinks that he or she can use shotguns, rifles, and pistols to successfully take on the U.S. government and its military is delusional.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Doug, that's why Hogeye (& the NRA) want assault weapons and missile launchers legally available to who ever has the money to buy them. The latter is why various terrorist groups recommend getting their arms in the U.S.

National Parks are NOT the place for "carrying concealed" - if you think you're going to have to defend yourself from a bear, carry a rifle (if you know how to use it). Carrying concealed is for people who feel "big" with a gun on them, but they can't be trusted to not to shoot the cub scout making his way through the underbrush.

[Dardedar]

People killed in the 20th century by their own governments after being disarmed by gun control laws: 170 million.

DAR
Source: Hogeye's ass.

[Hogeye]

Anyone who thinks that he or she can use shotguns, rifles, and pistols to successfully take on the U.S. government and its military is delusional.

Fallacious thinking, the same as saying, 'Anyone who thinks scruffy guerrillas in (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua...) could successfully take on the US govt and its military is delusional.'

The flaw is in construing defense as an all or nothing thing - that the only way to successfully defend is to totally annihilate the opponent. In real life, successful defense is much easier: you simply have to make the aggression more expensive than it's worth to the opponent. The USAmerican Secession is a good example. The revolutionaries were no match for the mighty British Empire militarily. But they made keeping the colonies more expensive than they were worth.

It's amazing how often that fallacious strawman is trotted out by gungrabbers!


The source for the 170 million murdered by their own govts in the 20th century comes from JPFO, as already cited. In their fine documentary, they use UN and other sources to count up deaths in genocides from Jap on China (e.g. rape of Nanjing, etc.), USSR's Ukrainian genocide, Nazi holocaust (the top three in order of magnitude BTW), the Armenian genocide, Rwana, and so on. But perhaps you don't really dispute the 170 million figure, but are simply making a joke.

[Dardedar]

DAR
You mislabled your quote, Doug made the above comment. I find the idea that gun control laws facilitated the death of 170 million people absurd. In response to just the Nazi part of the claim, you can read a short and thorough roast of this nonsense at gunCite, a very pro-gun, anti-guncontrol, site:

The Myth of Nazi Gun Control

Excerpts:

"A commonly heard argument against gun control is that the National Socialists of Germany (the Nazis) used it in their ascent to and maintenance of power. A corollary argument is sometimes made that had the Jews (and presumably the other targeted groups) been armed, they could have fought off Nazi tyranny. This tract seeks to counter these misassumptions about Nazi gun control."

...
"Obviously, the Nazis did not need gun control to attain power as they already (in 1938) possessed supreme and unlimited power in Germany. The only feasible argument that gun control favored the Nazis would be that the 1928 law deprived private armies of a means to defeat them. The basic flaw with this argument is that the Nazis did not seize power by force of arms, but through their success at the ballot box (and the political cunning of Hitler himself). Secondary considerations that arise are that gun ownership was not that widespread to begin with, and, even imagining such ubiquity the German people, Jews in particular, were not predisposed to violent resistance to their government."

etc.

D.

[Hogeye]

Oops, sorry. Yes, that was Doug who gave the "successfully take on the U.S. government" strawman.

Darrel, you give an accurate rendition of my claim - that "gun control laws facilitated the death of 170 million people." The GunCite quote does not address JPFO's (and my) claim, but a very different claim: that gun control was used in the Nazi ascent to and maintenance of power. Whether or not it was important in their ascent to power, it did facilitate their genocide of Jews.

The fact that victim disarmament ("gun-control") laws preceeded virtually every 20th century genocide is on the record in law books and history books. I have a copy of the "Innocents Betrayed" DVD, but I let my sister borrow it. I should get it back when we get together at Xmas. If so, I'll let you check it out. As I recall, it's only an hour, so it may even be appropriate for a Freethinker meeting.

[Dardedar]

The GunCite quote does not address JPFO's (and my) claim

DAR
I have no idea why you say such ridiculous things. The guncite article responds to many claims regarding the Nazi gun control myth, and most definitely including yours. See below.
"Facilitate" is a very weak and foggy claim so I am not going to even bother roasting it. It is worth noting that a mainstream pro-gun site like GunCite runs from using this entirely bogus argument. It reminds me of "Answers In Genesis" recommending Christians not use Hovind's crappy arguments.

D.
---------------------
Paragraph five of the six paragraph Guncite article:

"A more farfetched question is the hypothetical proposition of armed Jewish resistance. First, they were not commonly armed even prior to the 1928 Law. Second, Jews had seen pogroms before and had survived them, though not without suffering. They would expect that this one would, as had the past ones, eventually subside and permit a return to normalcy. Many considered themselves "patriotic Germans" for their service in the first World War. These simply were not people prepared to stage violent resistance. Nor were they alone in this mode of appeasement. The defiance of "never again" is not so much a warning to potential oppressors as it is a challenge to Jews to reject the passive response to pogrom. Third, it hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided." --ibid

[Hogeye]

Yes, saying "the victim disarmament laws facilitated the genocide" is a weaker claim than saying that Jews would have successfully resisted the Nazis - but the former is the JPFO (and my) claim and the latter is not. You seem to be saying that you can't refute the weaker, reasonable claim, so you want to move the goalposts to a stronger unreasonable claim. Paragraph six of GunCite, like you, is arguing against a much stronger claim. If you want to debate, please argue against the claim I make - don't make up a strawman to knock over.

[Doug]

Oops, sorry. Yes, that was Doug who gave the "successfully take on the U.S. government" strawman.

DOUG
And it is you who made the "Red Dawn" fantasy your position.

[Hogeye]

My position is that, ceteris paribus, people choose less costly alternatives to more costly alternatives. This is a simple praxeologic truth. A mugger is less likely to try to mug a 250 football player than a little old lady. A criminal is less likely to attack someone he knows is armed than someone he knows is unarmed. Goons from the State are less likely to try to exterminate people they know are armed than people they know have been disarmed.

The "Red Dawn" thing is your strawman.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

A mugger is more likely to mug whoever he thinks is carrying the most money or hockable stuff. The issue of size and health of the victim is only one of how much force do you initially use. You can bop a little old lady over the head, if you think snatch and run won't work, but you'd better bash the 250 pound football player's head with a weighted club, if you don't shoot him. And if you think your potential victim is "carrying concealed" you'd better shoot him.

A really motivated indigenous group can utilize practically anything to cause wasting of an invasion force. They pick up their arms by attacking the aggressor and taking his. (SOP for Francis Marion's men in the American Revolution. Also the Resistance in France and the Partisans in Eastern Europe during WWII. The Iraqis have picked up most of their weapons that way and are being fairly successful, too.) It only works with invasion forces, especially those from a continent away (you note it took armies to get rid of the Nazis, even though the underground movements tied up many battalions and gave the armies a "fighting chance" in the field - and it didn't work in the War Between the States).

As to genocide - those victims are always picked for religious reasons (or variations that lead back to religion) and it wouldn't matter if they were armed or not.

[Doug]

My position is that, ceteris paribus, people choose less costly alternatives to more costly alternatives. This is a simple praxeologic truth. A mugger is less likely to try to mug a 250 football player than a little old lady. A criminal is less likely to attack someone he knows is armed than someone he knows is unarmed. Goons from the State are less likely to try to exterminate people they know are armed than people they know have been disarmed.

DOUG
Can you show this? It sure doesn't seem to be true. Representatives of the government kill armed civilians on a daily basis all over the world.

Remember Ruby Ridge and Waco?

The "Red Dawn" thing is your strawman.

DOUG
That is the scenario you seem to be suggesting, that we need guns to defend ourselves from our own government.

[Hogeye]

First there is the praxeological "law," that people prefer more of a good to less, less of a bad to more. I.e. muggers are less likely to mug big strong men than little old ladies, robbers less likely to rob houses with "beware of dog" signs than houses without, etc. This is common sense from the attackers POV. If you're going to murder (or enslave) people, you would rather not have them shooting at you. E.g. it was illegal for slaves in the American south to carry guns, with rare exceptions with master's permission. (Even after slavery, gun control laws were used to keep blacks unarmed and ready for lynching.) It was generally illegal to sell firearms to Amerindians, which aided in that genocide.

Second, there is induction: virtually every genocide was prepared by disarming the victims. Here's a list of 20th century genocides for your perusal.

All this is quite convincing to me. Note that I said it was less likely that governments engage in violence/genocide against armed victims than unarmed victims. I didn't say it was impossible or never happened. Thus your Ruby Ridge and Waco exceptions do not refute my claim. Waco seems to support the proposition that arms are a deterrent to govt aggression - had the Branch Davidians been unarmed, the govt thugs would have gone in immediately rather than laid seige for so long. Perhaps one of the best examples of how an armed citizenry deters aggression is the Nazi push east. Instead of going through Switzerland where people are known to be armed and excellent marksmen, they went around.

That "Death by Gun Control" page linked above has an interesting "formula:"

Hatred + Government + Disarmed Civilians = Genocide

[Dardedar]

...had the Branch Davidians been unarmed, the govt thugs would have gone in immediately rather than laid seige for so long.

DAR
Too bad they resisted the government with guns and violence. This demonstrates Doug's point of the futility and stupidity and delusion of such behavior. Minus the armed resistance, the duly appointed authorities could have came in, had a little chat, made the proper arrests and straightened things out without all of the death. When guns are around, more people die. Because of gun nuts the US has astounding and pitiful numbers like this:

“…the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die in a firearm accident than children in these other countries.”
--Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rates of homicide, suicide, and firearm-related deaths among children in 26 industrialized countries. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1997; 46 :101 –105

link

Now if we could only have some anarchy to go along with all of these guns. Then we could really have a true (Somalian) paradise with all of the societal "benefits" too.

D.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Hitler didn't go through Switzerland because the Panzer tank units couldn't go through the mountain passes.

Hate will always find victims, armed or otherwise. Insurgents don't start out armed with guns - they start out armed with clubs, molotov cocktails, and other homemade weapons. They get their guns from the "enemy".