- Joined
- Feb 1, 2006
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- Cheyenne, WY
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We are past the point of development as a nation where high powered weaponry could ever stop the State from turning tyrannical. This isn't the 18th century with muskets and cannons. Our government has weapons, some of them classified, that are beyond our defense; and our government's greatest asset is that it has become an expert at psychologically manipulating its own people into doing its bidding. Even if 10% of the military remained loyal to the government in a civil conflict, the public would still be doomed.
To the extent that we have high powered weaponry and the State has already turned tyrannical, this is true. This is not because of the disparity in weapons technology, however, but the lack of resistance among the American people. We are, as you say, brainwashed not only to accept tyranny but to clamor for it.
That is no excuse for compiling further tyranny on top of tyranny, however.
It's easy to talk political philosophy on a computer but if your family member was mowed down by someone who bought their assault rifle at the corner store, you'd question this too.
This is a cheap emotional appeal. A lot of the people most affected by this shooting-- apart from the dead, of course-- have indeed changed their perspective because of this threat to their lives and their freedom. They've replied by inventing the Rainbow Gadsden flag and buying more guns. #ShootBack
There has to be a middle ground. We can still have a 2nd Amendment while doing whatever we can to try and prevent our most degenerate citizens from killing people en mass. As I said earlier, the violence is a symptom of a much bigger problem, but there's treating the branch and then there's treating the root. The root, in my opinion, is beyond help. Our country is in a downward spiral that we won't recover from, one that will require some kind of reconfiguration of our society that we are not capable of voluntarily doing right now. All we can do for now is address the branch, which is to prevent known degenerates from acquiring weapons. It will never be foolproof, but we have to try.
I disagree that the roots of our violence culture are unreachable. There are numerous effective and liberal policies we could pursue that would drastically improve our crime rates, that the gun control debate is detracting from. And there is, indeed, a middle ground even on gun rights; there are numerous gun control measures we could adopt that would not violate the fundamental right to keep and bear arms that are politically unfeasible because of the state of distrust that exists between gun control advocates and gun owners. Perhaps if the former would stop advocating for total gun bans, and stop telling gun owners that nobody's trying to ban our guns while they are trying to ban our guns, that rift of distrust could be healed.
A replacement "2nd Amendment" that explicitly protected an individual right to keep and bear arms, outside the home, for self-defense-- so that the gun control crowd can no longer legally argue that such a right exists, or that the American people do not desire such a right-- would be a sufficient concession for me to accept gun licenses and gun registration that are compatible with that right. Most Americans, including most gun owners, agree on the need for universal background checks; however, I believe that the gun rights lobby is morally justified in demanding concessions before they go along with it, because of the abuse of our rights by the gun control lobby.