Gun control=Genocide

[MikeWilliams]

Iain,

Thank you for that superbly thought-out and worded post.

[Mekugi]

Look, if you are trying to convince me that an armed populace is defenseless, I am sad to say you are barking up the wrong tree.

Simple. No further explanation really needed. Does not, has not and will never work that way.

-Russ

Originally posted by Iain
not even could have. In the immortal words of the gun lobby, 'guns don't kill people, people kill people'. You need political and psychological will to pull that trigger. You have to live in a society where pulling the trigger is generally considered to be an appropriate course of action under a given set of circumstances, and on a fundamental level, you need to feel physically threatened enough to pull the trigger.

I can't climb inside the head of a European Jew in 1936-38. I don't know enough about the political and social climate to make an accurate judgement about the likelihood of a Jew being informed and willing enough to pull the trigger. I do get the feeling, however, that given the complicated nature of the problem, asserting that simply having the material means necessary to defend onesself will fail to have any significant likelihood of altering the outcome of the situation.

Think about it this way. The Romans had an understanding of steam power. They had toys which functioned based on the principals of steam locomotion. They completely failed to see the usefulness of their technological discovery, and relegated it to the field of amusing children. 2000 years later, the world was revolutionized by the rediscovered power of steam. If you don't think something is useful, it probably isn't going to be.

Guns don't miraculously embolden people into discarding their social psychologies, nor do they reward the people wielding them with the gift of prophesy.

To top it off, when guns were finally banned, there was still no restriction on Jews leaving the country. In fact, they did so in sizeable numbers right up until it became impossible to do so. Given the choice of leaving and shooting ones way out of a ghetto patrolled by ruthless waffen-SS troopers, which do you think most would choose. Even if European Jews had known what awaited them should the Nazis take over, it seems unlikely that they would have been willing to stick around and tough it out in a country full of people who were at best indifferent to their plight. Running would have been a far more fruitful option than facing the combined wrath of the Gestapo and SS. Small arms are not going to help you stand against an embedded Facist political, police, and military machine. The Gestapo were faultlessly ruthless, and the SS charged with carrying out their dirty work were not simply scared thugs; they were brainwashed killers and hardened soldiors. Guns or no guns, resistance efforts across Europe suffered horrifying losses to Nazi occupiers. When a cell was found, or a place of active resistance encountered, they systematically slaughtered people until it stopped. Sometimes they simply slaughtered people just in case. Hell, sometimes by the time they finished killing and burning, there was nothing left. Had the German Jews organized into pockets of resistance, the site simply would have been wiped off the map. Women, children, Jews, non-jews, cattle, crops, buildings; everything. They did it enough times in Poland and across Eastern Europe and the Balkans that we know it to be true. If you somehow think that shelling five or six city blocks of Ghetto to quell a resistance effort -even if that Ghetto is somewhere in a German city- is somehow beyond the ken of a Nazi administrator, you are sorely mistaken. For civilians, running was not only the best option for survival, it was likely the only option if one wished to keep on surviving.

Private gun ownership was (and still is) of very little symbolic value to the European population at large. It may be seen as a symbol of prestige among more wealthy families, but it certainly had no broader emancipatory connotations within the general population.

If the actual physical presence of guns is seen as a single material factor among a host of others, it ceases to seem as important. When it becomes a single material factor among a host of non-material factors as well, it seems less important still.

And as far as Rwanda goes...

You know what would have been more effective than an armed population? Less international bickering about who was going to foot the bill for saving 800,000 lives. Any nation or organization who can sit by and scratch their head whilst ground forces, journalists, and their own officials scream genocide needs to rethink their priorities and take a good long look at the absolutely reprihensible manner in which they conduct themselves. Not pointing fingers here as the whole catastrophe was by in large due to a group of nations and institutions who put money and politics before massacre, but it doesn't surprise me that Nigeria put up the manpower without question while a bunch of rich white people 'umm'ed and 'aah'ed about the costliness of stopping crazy people from raping and then hacking the genitalia off of women and children. What happened in Rwanda was disgusting, and will live on in history as perhaps the largest blot on the long and much blotted history of both Africa and the West.

[MikeWilliams]

An armed populace is clearly not 'defenseless' on a theoretical level. Come to think of it, neither is an unarmed populace.

People's willingness to resort to violence is contingent on many complex factors, not least of which are "what have I got to lose?" and "how much support can I count on from my peers / family / neighbours / community?"

There have been plenty of non-violent popular uprisings (India, the Phillipines, East Germany) where access to firearms was not a factor in overthrowing oppression.

Likewise there have been plenty of instances of armed resistance against government power (some of which have occurred in the USA) which failed.

Look, I'm not anti-gun ownership, but the more the gun-lobby relies on over-simplified, emotionally-laden, asinine arguments like "guns=freedom, lack-of-guns=oppression", the more all right-thinking people will refuse to have anything to do with them.

The basic premise of the original article is false. It is pure hyperbole and propaganda. I honestly cannot believe that anybody is taking it as a serious argument against gun-control.

[Iain]

Originally posted by Mekugi
Look, if you are trying to convince me that an armed populace is defenseless, I am sad to say you are barking up the wrong tree.

Simple. No further explanation really needed. Does not, has not and will never work that way.

-Russ

An armed population can be defenseless if they see themselves as so, or see no need to defend themselves. I'm sorry if the idea that posessing a firearm is not independantly capable of empowering a person upsets you, but it's the solid gold truth.

Not everyone thinks and acts the same way you do. This is not to belittle the way you act, but to presume that simply by superimposing your social psychology on other groups you can accurately chart their most fruitful and logical course of action is a fundamental error.

Nietsche identifies four great errors within rationalism. The first is confusing cause with conseqence. He notes that a person living a long life might proscribe to others a meagre diet because -his diet being meagre- it is the causal factor for his long life. In fact, his long life is a product of his low metabolism. His diet is a conseqence of his low metabolism rather than his diet being the cause of his long life. He could eat no other way, as to consume large amounts of food would make him sick. This is the same error. Having firearms function as tools of emancipation is a conseqence of American social psychology not the cause of the freedom that they enjoy.

Yes, it's allegorical and a little oversimplified, but it's only meant to serve as a metaphor.

The only universal epistemological leap you can make from cause to conseqence that links a person with a firearm is to say that the bullet stuck in the thing you shot at is a conseqence of the trigger you pulled.

If you wish to pursue a course of armed insurrection against the state, you need firearms to do it. This tells you nothing about the likelihood of it happening, or the profitability of carrying it out.

The communists failed to attempt a significant overthrow of the Reich, despite the fact that they were far more militant than the Jews and could have more than likely mustered up a nominal supply of firearms with which to assault the government. Why? I don't know why exactly, and I cannot reliably speculate. The truth of the matter is that despite their more favourable circumstances (including probably access to firearms. I doubt Stalin would have been entirely adverse to shipping them in, and there is little doubt in my mind that before the Nazis tightened their iron grip on the nations, they could not have both amassed stockpiles and bought access to government caches) they did nothing. This was because the crude materialist approach they took to Marxism largely disinclined them to act. The proletariat would revolt whenever they did, and that was that. There are other controlling facts, but the point is that even with increased tendencies towards militancy and a higher potential for access to firearms, they failed to act.

Your argument is founded in the commonsensical, and although commonsense has its uses, political analysis is not one of them.

[Mekugi]

Give me one example of an armed population that was defenseless.

Originally posted by Iain
An armed population can be defenseless if they see themselves as so, or see no need to defend themselves. I'm sorry if the idea that posessing a firearm is not independantly capable of empowering a person upsets you, but it's the solid gold truth.

Not everyone thinks and acts the same way you do. This is not to belittle the way you act, but to presume that simply by superimposing your social psychology on other groups you can accurately chart their most fruitful and logical course of action is a fundamental error.

Nietsche identifies four great errors within rationalism. The first is confusing cause with conseqence. He notes that a person living a long life might proscribe to others a meagre diet because -his diet being meagre- it is the causal factor for his long life. In fact, his long life is a product of his low metabolism. His diet is a conseqence of his low metabolism rather than his diet being the cause of his long life. He could eat no other way, as to consume large amounts of food would make him sick. This is the same error. Having firearms function as tools of emancipation is a conseqence of American social psychology not the cause of the freedom that they enjoy.

Yes, it's allegorical and a little oversimplified, but it's only meant to serve as a metaphor.

The only universal epistemological leap you can make from cause to conseqence that links a person with a firearm is to say that the bullet stuck in the thing you shot at is a conseqence of the trigger you pulled.

If you wish to pursue a course of armed insurrection against the state, you need firearms to do it. This tells you nothing about the likelihood of it happening, or the profitability of carrying it out.

The communists failed to attempt a significant overthrow of the Reich, despite the fact that they were far more militant than the Jews and could have more than likely mustered up a nominal supply of firearms with which to assault the government. Why? I don't know why exactly, and I cannot reliably speculate. The truth of the matter is that despite their more favourable circumstances (including probably access to firearms. I doubt Stalin would have been entirely adverse to shipping them in, and there is little doubt in my mind that before the Nazis tightened their iron grip on the nations, they could not have both amassed stockpiles and bought access to government caches) they did nothing. This was because the crude materialist approach they took to Marxism largely disinclined them to act. The proletariat would revolt whenever they did, and that was that. There are other controlling facts, but the point is that even with increased tendencies towards militancy and a higher potential for access to firearms, they failed to act.

Your argument is founded in the commonsensical, and although commonsense has its uses, political analysis is not one of them.

[Iain]

Defenseless how? The miners strikes that took place in Kentucky were effectively put down despite the second amendment, as were strikes by garment workers unions. The native americans had no restrictions on firearms ownership. They fought back on a regular basis, and it didn't do them much good. Defense doesn't guarantee sucess. I'm going to bed, but I'll get back to this later.

[Mekugi]

Again, give me one example of an armed population being defenseless.

Again, I fail to see any validity in your arguement supported by anything other than opinion and feelings. You have a right have and opinion and to feel that way. However you aren't going to get any leeway with me without proof.

Originally posted by Iain
Defenseless how? The miners strikes that took place in Kentucky were effectively put down despite the second amendment, as were strikes by garment workers unions. The native americans had no restrictions on firearms ownership. They fought back on a regular basis, and it didn't do them much good. Defense doesn't guarantee sucess. I'm going to bed, but I'll get back to this later.

[Iain]

How about England during the middle ages? Everyone was requred to have weaponry in the event they be conscripted into the kings army. This failed to save them from the depredations of despotic rule.

How about all those people in the trenches during World War I? They were armed to the teeth, yet rather than removing those who beguiled and forced them into killing one another, they spent four years fighting for the aggrandisement of their leaders.

Sending millions of your people out to die in trenches for a meaningless cause is just as good as shooting them in their homes, and WWI was the king of meaningless causes.

I'd count both of these and the examples listed before as defenseless populations being preyed upon by various governments.

being able only to fight a fruitless battle in which one will inevitably loose regardless of ones actions is de facto defenselessness, as is having arms and lacking the foresight or will to use them.

There are plenty of examples of armed populations doing nothing to throw off the yoke of a despotic government.

[Dex]

Well the Waco massacre was an armed population wiped out by authorities.

[Mekugi]

They defended themselves. They just didn't win.

Same question:

What armed population was defenseless?

[Mekugi]

Some say they wiped themselves out.

They also held them at bay for a long time. It wasn't a cakewalk and they certainly weren't defenseless.


\

Originally posted by Dex
Well the Waco massacre was an armed population wiped out by authorities.

[Dex]

They were an armed populace, and the authorities wiped them out (resorting to burning them).

There is your 'defenceless' example.

The authorities sealed them off from the outside world and killed them.

[Mekugi]

They seemed to have put up a pretty good defense.
They just lost.

Originally posted by Dex
They were an armed populace, and the authorities wiped them out (resorting to burning them).

There is your 'defenceless' example.

The authorities sealed them off from the outside world and killed them.

[Iain]

You're trying to mask an unequal power relation with spurious logic.

You are defacto defenseless if regardless of your level of armament you are incapable of winning. Again, simply carrying a gun does not guartantee a set level of defensibility.

The population of the US is not at the mercy of the government not simply because they are armed, or because the constitution guarantees civil rights. The Soviet Union had a constitution that was crammed with democratic language, institutional checks and balances, and numerous guarantees of personal freedom. They were simply ignored. The citizenry of the US enjoys a certain level of freedom of action because of a cultural consensus of universal rights. The ownership and carriage of firearms is an integral guarantor of that freedom not simply because they have value as 'things in themselves' but because they have been fetishized (don't get all uppity because I used the word fetish, it doesn't mean what you think it does). They are items of cultural and psychological power. That is why they are important. If you need proof of this, go to other countries and talk to the people. I clearly can't argue this into your head, so maybe the blank stares and quizzical frowns of people across the planet will.

When push comes to shove, the state inevitably shoves harder. The only thing that allows insurrection or revolution to succeed is the unwillingness or incompetence inherent in state bureaucracy.

[Mekugi]

Well, my point was that armed people are not defenseless. Now, you can't show me where there is an instance of them being defenseless, so you want to show "lose" as an equal thing. Not true.

Originally posted by Iain
You're trying to mask an unequal power relation with spurious logic.

You are defacto defenseless if regardless of your level of armament you are incapable of winning. Again, simply carrying a gun does not guartantee a set level of defensibility.

The population of the US is not at the mercy of the government not simply because they are armed, or because the constitution guarantees civil rights. The Soviet Union had a constitution that was crammed with democratic language, institutional checks and balances, and numerous guarantees of personal freedom. They were simply ignored. The citizenry of the US enjoys a certain level of freedom of action because of a cultural consensus of universal rights. The ownership and carriage of firearms is an integral guarantor of that freedom not simply because they have value as 'things in themselves' but because they have been fetishized (don't get all uppity because I used the word fetish, it doesn't mean what you think it does). They are items of cultural and psychological power. That is why they are important. If you need proof of this, go to other countries and talk to the people. I clearly can't argue this into your head, so maybe the blank stares and quizzical frowns of people across the planet will.

When push comes to shove, the state inevitably shoves harder. The only thing that allows insurrection or revolution to succeed is the unwillingness or incompetence inherent in state bureaucracy.