Good point. The activities of rent-a-soldiers in the aftermath of Katrina come to mind!
This is a powerful argument in favor of continuing doing exactly what we are already doing. But that wouldn’t involve any attack on the perceived other, which is what anti-gun groups are looking for, and it’s not satisfactory to extremist pro-gun groups, either, who want to roll back existing restrictions on concealed carry and/or put more guns in schools.
That’s a pretty extremist viewpoint - we are embarked on a course of action that is provably working, but you want to abandon it for something you think might be better. I prefer the scientific method to the “bold man of action” sort of damn-the-torpedoes interventionism you espouse.
You’re probably right. Such ads would almost certainly have to be privately funded - but I don’t think the organizations that do that kind of advertisement would be satisfied with any message that could be interpreted as acknowledging the basic human right of armed self-defense.
Not wanting people to die needlessly is an extreme viewpoint?
Tell me what is working. You and skr1 point to the trend of the slow decrease in gun violence over decades, but what is causing it? And if we know what is causing it, why wouldn’t we want to enhance what is already working well? Show me the science that supports your assertion - not just statistics and patterns, but conclusions - so we can lobby for an increase in whatever that cause is that is proven to work.
Self defense isn’t in the UN declaration or the Bill of Rights. The fact that we deem self-defense as an acceptable legal defense for what would otherwise be violent crime - and how we judge what is valid self-defense - varies from place to place. If there is a culture in the US that believes that this ought to be considered a human right, then I don’t think there is much agreement on that in the rest of the world or among human rights advocates.
And a basic right of “armed” self-defense seems really out of left field. That sounds like if I was mugged I could sue the government for not having provided me with a gun in advance.
Except it isn’t the governments job to provide that to you. We are supposed to have a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. But it isn’t the govs. job to give you anything, but to stay out of your way so you can attain it. Though is does have a role to provide over sight to punish people out there who are working to harm you in one way or another.
But if someone assaults you, it technically isn’t even the police’s responsibility to stop the attack. They are supposed to arrest the person after wards if they can. Despite the catchy slogans on the cars, they have no duty to protect you (though nearly all of them will).
I’m curious how this is worthy of reporting? Seriously, more people die from lightning strikes in the US per year than toddler gun violence. Gun deaths are a hot topic once again with the recent shootings, and everyone has to jump on the anti-gun bandwagon. I think education is more important than legislation in these cases. According to the CDC, in 2013 the accidental deaths for children age 1-4 was 8.3 per 100,000. Figuring the US population was ~316 million in 2013, that’s ~26K accidental toddler deaths that year. So, I think guns are the least of our worries when it comes to protecting toddlers from accidental death.
Well, we have the right to vote in elections by the UN declaration, and the government has to provide that to us. We have a right to be represented by counsel if accused of a crime (sixth amendment) and the government has to provide us with that. The UN declaration also says we have the right to legal remedy if our rights are violated, which requires the government to set up courts.
Governments have a responsibility to ensure their citizens have their rights. For life and liberty, we are taken to be born with those things and to have those things existing within us, so the government doesn’t have to provide them, they just have to not take them away. But “armed self-defense” would require that we have arms, something we are not naturally born with, so it would be more like a lawyer at trial or an election.
The irony is that there are way more safety laws concerning bathtubs than there are for handguns in this country… (Edit: and they seem to be working, too, as the number of bathtub drownings has been greatly reduced.)
the whole discussion of gun control is out of control. within this comment thread i’ve seen displays of the absurd lengths people who love guns will got to in order to justify the enormous prevalence of guns in the states, i’ve seen those who oppose guns display an inability to compare relative risks, i’ve seen the few individuals who want to try and have a resonable discussion and attempt to find some kind of middle ground get threadjacked by people on either side over tiny details and semantic issues. as i’ve said in another thread about guns and gun control, i own guns, three of them: a model 94 winchester 30-30, a remington model 1100 12 ga. shotgun, and a ruger redhawk .44 magnum revolver. the first two i use for hunting because i like cooking and eating game, the third one i use for target shooting and plinking in a sand quarry on my family’s property. if handguns were made illegal overnight i would gladly turn it in to the proper location as soon as possible because i question the need for anyone to possess one except as a sidearm for military personnel (and no, i do not believe it should be in the hands of police either). the rifle and the shotgun i am more attached to because i do hunt and because i inherited them from my father. my thinking about gun control, handguns excepted, is nuanced and complex because the issues relating to them are far from simple.
100 dead toddlers is tragic but the tiny fraction of overall firearms deaths in the u.s. which that number represents is more indicative that the vast majority of gun owners with children are taking reasonable precautions than the reverse. i believe in more stringent gun control. i think the handgun class of firearms should be removed from circulation entirely. using the deaths of those children as a rallying point for making the argument in favor of increased gun control offends my knowledge of mathematics and statistics as either a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of what that particular number of deaths means.
I’d certanlly rather see Hillary (or Bernie) win than the GOP, but if gun control becomes an issue, don’t bet on it. Besides inciting the hard core gun owners, it would basically bring back a variation on the PUMAs (Hillary supporters who were determined to split the party and aggressively reject anyone’s political support)… They were basically purity trolls who had no particular agenda except hating everyone else. It’s funny to think that anyone was that invested in the idea that Obama and Hillary were somehow not fraternal twins. Some of them became LaRouchies, so mental health issues were definitely a factor. Firedoglake, an excellent political web site embraced them, and that led to the eventual closure of that fine site.
And once again, single issue voters ruin it for the rest of us.
The Republicans could hand out guns to every toddler in America and the toddler gun death rate could skyrocket and some pro-birthers would still only vote Republican because they’re nominally anti-abortion, even if significant bills opposing abortion never make it to a vote during the next several years.
Single issue activists wear failure as a badge of honor. But a lot of people appear to be single issue activists when they are really just driving trollies a different topic this year than last year and they’ll be driving trollies something else next year. That’s not something I made up either - psychoanalysts from about 1915 to 1965 were looking at this as possibly a form of schizophrenia. Typically these were political activists who bounced from issue to issue with a general lack of efficacy and emotions that were shallow and lacked “genuineness” (but compensated by being loud). Often their relationships ended with one or both parties accusing each other of betrayal.
A fun one to bring up when comparing other countries is Iceland. A couple years ago they held a day of national mourning because the police were forced to shoot someone.
