“Hey, they were crushed when Beijing got their excuse to send in the People’s Liberation Army, and anyone who had protested got a bullet in the back of the head, and Hong Kong lost the last traces of democracy and was absorbed into the rest of China, but at least they died fighting and managed to kill a few PLA soldiers (evil, evil PLA soldiers), and it was cool to watch on TV from half a world away. I can’t wait for the movie.”
With advances in technology comes the unfortunate side effect of people doing bad things with the technology. That is was law and regulation is for.
That being said, GRAB THOSE GUNS! I support amending the constitution, repealing the second amendment and using every regulatory power to reduce and destroy as many weapons as possible. Ultimately we need to focus on improving human behavior and desires and addressing the conditions that would cause people to want a dangerous weapon in the first place.
During the Umbrella Movement demonstrations I read something arguing that this is why the Hong Kong police are so ruthless towards demonstrators. The theory was that police commanders are determined to maintain their monopoly on responsibility for security in the territory (and thereby protect Hong Kong’s autonomy and way of life) by maintaining control at all costs and ensuring that the Chinese government never has a pretext to deploy the PLA.
We are improving - overall - in nearly all metrics. We are living longer, safer lives now more than anytime in the US history, or in human history. I guess focusing on it globally isn’t really helpful for our conversation - but it is true. But no, we are doing very well. Just like most of the fears the right is touting as detrimental to the future of America, they are mostly issues blown WAY out of proportion if not out right hyperbole/lies.
We are connected and watched in the US unlike any other point in history. People are terrified of a stranger snatching a kid and the like, or terrorism, but both are incredibly rare. Mass shootings are terrifying, but also incredibly rare. Homicide is way down.
Do we have huge issues still like income inequality, climbing suicide rate, carbon emissions,systemic racism, and an utterly broken health care system? Yes. We still have a lot of challenges ahead. But also aren’t on the edge of becoming an 80s near future dystopian movie where roving gangs rule the streets and the citizens cower in fear until Robocop shows up.
Is the rise of fascism, authoritarianism, and open racism on a huge concern? Absolutely. I am not naive in thinking there are still big problems to face - especially the systemic ones. Which is one reason I support more freedoms and less authoritarianism.
I confess I haven’t read Cory’s stories (I really should read more BOOKS :/) , but IIRC that has been his point in several BB posts. While I don’t think he is thrilled at the idea of easily printed guns, limiting the files to be shared or the machines physically ability to make parts will hamstring soooo much more than just firearms. IIRC one of his other concerns is corporations blocking the ability for machines to print out parts to repair or modify their products. They are already doing that with some equipment with EULA - you can’t fix your own stuff!
Yes, but as long as the government has guns, this possibility is unavoidable. In Yugoslavia, the Serbs had all the guns because they comprised the military and police, and the lack of civilian firearms didn’t do anything to protect the Bosnians.
Personally, I would far sooner trust the vast majority of adults I know with a gun than I would trust a cop to have that gun.
How about neither.
That would be great, but then how do you defend yourselves from other governments with guns?
What is your point exactly.
My point is that, when you say
You are implicitly ignoring the fact that guns are available to the governments everywhere. Unless your plan involves disarming them, too, then you are just proposing that their current or future victims should unilaterally disarm.
The argument being made by the gun lobby is that there is a positive case whereby civilian possession of guns can prevent tyranny and atrocities. The point I am making is that this is not true, that civilian guns (and other weapons) in situations of tyranny and atrocity have in fact a much more reliable history of being used to assist and commit state-aligned violence against innocents, and hence there is no such positive case for gun ownership.
I am not making the point that civilians not possessing guns makes atrocities impossible. Obviously this is untrue. But large scale possession of guns makes things easier. Going from a country with a small well organised military and unarmed police, to a country with armed police, to a country with armed police and armed civilians, the potential for large scale atrocities increases, not decreases. Correspondingly the ability for nonviolent civil segments of the population to be effective reduces.
Am I proposing that “their current or future victims should unilaterally disarm”?
Yes, because the idea that victims of tyrannical regimes can self-defend with firearms is a dangerous fantasy.
The only real way to prevent people from becoming victims is the maintenance of civil society with protections of the individual and commitments to non-violence, and militaries/police answerable to society upholding rules that protect the people - and when this fails, international intervention.
The stability of these civil societies is actively harmed by the possession of guns which can be used for political killing and terror in the prelude to the outbreak of violence, and the military/police are inevitably tainted by the fact that they disproportionately recruit from gun-possessing subsegments of society - who inevitably hold specific values that make them dangerous to put in uniforms.
Feed guns into a society and those guns do not go to the persecuted minority. The mechanisms that distribute the guns in society is the same mechanism that creates the persecution, so guns will always end up in the hands of the richer, the more powerful, the more willing to hurt. Any guns in the hands of victimised minorities either end up insignificant/useless, or are easily removed by legal means before full violence break out.
Which is going to happen, guns or no guns, as long as the rest of the world does nothing more than offering up thoughts and prayers.
There will be no international intervention if the WhatAboutUs Brigade (well represented here on BB)
gets their way and prohibits intervention by any country that is not 100.000 percent simon pure.
I think it’s an argument the other way. The lightly armed insurgents made the Soviets go home and are on the verge of making the Americans go home. The fact that the insurgents are themselves fascist theocrats is incidental.
(Trigger Warning: Libertarian buuuulshit.)
Yes, this is for future rebels and partisans. Just like that weed is for your glaucoma.
Dude, your very name presumes bad faith, but even ignoring that, you’re not a freedom fighter. You’re not going to help liberate the future oppressed peoples of the People’s Republic of Butte after the Chi-coms take over. You’re not going to liberate the nice ladies from Immortan Joe. What you ARE going to do with your fun Venn-diagram-of-Etsy-and-Homicide is get at least one person shot. In. The. Face. By a bad ex, a bad husband, a bad employee, a bad person.
You can wrap your Bill Nye Libertarian bullshit in a wonton and eat it, because that’s not principle you’re standing on, it’s the shallow grave of one of your future victims.
Because the next person who uses your plans may not be as judicious, clever and principled as you, and you just gave them an untraceable machine gun.
I respect your hobby, because my hobby is cooking. But I don’t feel a need to share recipes for food poisoning and trichinosis because I can.
There’s not a hell, but I hope there is just so you could spend it chained to Ralph Nader, pushing a big ball of dead bodies up a hill while you explain how you just wanted to see what would happen.
And people get upset when you post pictures of farcical guillotines
You said it.
It’s a problem with no easy or obvious solution. Trying to hamstring the machines wouldn’t work anyway. Any machine is hackable.
When seconds count police is just minutes away.
Y’all are aware that in the United States (other countries may differ, dunno), on the Federal level, there are no restrictions on buying blackpowder rifles, shotguns, pistols, or cannons? You can buy them online, in a store for cash, in a parking lot, wherever, all with no paperwork or registration (on a federal level: states do vary and I seem to recall at least Massachusetts requiring a firearm owners license to buy one). And as they are not legally considered firearms there is no serial number on them.
You can literally legally buy an “untraceable” professionally built pistol right now! For less than the cost of the cheapest of 3d printers.
Heck, they’re going on sale for Black Friday:
Of course, they are also available as kits if you want to DIY:
https://www.dixiegunworks.com/index/page/category/category_id/327/category_chain/312,325,327/name/Percussion/
So I don’t see how Ivanthetroll’s work is going to usher in a new wave of violence and death.
Some people just want it with extra carnage.
Happy to answer questions and defend my views. I’ve always drawn my best inspiration from challenge.
“Hey! Look at those living people over there!”
