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| kojax |
 Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 12:11 pm Post subject: Social Justice and the Gun |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 3034
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I get the impression that a lot of social injustice happens in the world simply because people aren't willing to fight. Or sometimes maybe they're not able to fight, because pitchforks vs. an AK-47 isn't any kind of odds.
Do you think the world would be a better place if we were to manufacture so many guns that everybody had one? Or maybe some people are pacifists, and they'd be unwilling to fight even if they could? I know some people are very squeemish about taking a life, even when it's necessary to avoid enslavement.
There's this popular saying "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." It's a quote attributed to a lot of different famous people, in various different form. I think all it takes is for good people to be unwilling or unable to carry a gun, and fire it.
Or maybe the problem is that, in some countries, people don't have enough social education to know when it's appropriate to fire it and when it's not. If the shooting starts, it never stops because they don't know when to stop. There really is an aspect of philosophical understanding involved in knowing what things are worth killing over and what things are not. |
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| iceaura |
| Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Bachelors Degree
Joined: 05 Oct 2008
Posts: 432
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| kojax wrote: |
| Do you think the world would be a better place if we were to manufacture so many guns that everybody had one? |
Somalia tried something like that. As PJ O'Rourke put it (in similar words), everything that can be accomplished with an assault rifle has been accomplished in Mogadishu.
Other places in which basically everyone who wants it has suitable weaponry and is willing to fight include Afghanistan, certain areas of the Congo, certain areas of Colombia, and a couple of regions in Mexico. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 5:01 pm Post subject: Re: Social Justice and the Gun |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 4180
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| kojax wrote: |
| Do you think the world would be a better place if we were to manufacture so many guns that everybody had one? |
Canada's "betterness" owes much to gun seizures at the border.
Few criminals here employ guns, because they rightly guess nobody else has guns. They can commit crimes just as easily and more safely without that equipment. If an idiot robs a gas station with a handgun though, the police are all on it so he's much more likely to be tracked down and apprehended.
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A pong by any other name is still a pong. -williampinn |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 6:49 pm Post subject: Re: Social Justice and the Gun |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 3034
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| Pong wrote: |
| kojax wrote: |
| Do you think the world would be a better place if we were to manufacture so many guns that everybody had one? |
Canada's "betterness" owes much to gun seizures at the border.
Few criminals here employ guns, because they rightly guess nobody else has guns. They can commit crimes just as easily and more safely without that equipment. If an idiot robs a gas station with a handgun though, the police are all on it so he's much more likely to be tracked down and apprehended. |
It seems like the key is just making sure everyone has a level playing field, either one way or the other. On the opposite end we have Switzerland, with arguably the highest percapita gun ownership rate in the world.
http://www.theblessingsofliberty.com/articles/article11.html
How's the saying go? "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king." You've either got to make sure nobody anywhere has the one eye, or make sure everyone everywhere has eyes. All the unjustices happen between those two extremes. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 7:31 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 4180
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So what level field would you rather we play on? Personally I rather scuffle with a mugger over my wallet than engage in a knife fight.
Maybe key is having police do arbitrary search and seizure of weapons.
If I'm a crook in America, can I prowl around with a knife in my pocket, and claim innocence.. like the knife's for my own protection? Say the cops search my car and find a rifle in the trunk, what can they do?
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A pong by any other name is still a pong. -williampinn |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 7:47 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 3034
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| Pong wrote: |
| So what level field would you rather we play on? Personally I rather scuffle with a mugger over my wallet than engage in a knife fight. |
You'd have to get rid of kitchens in order to get rid of knives, but I think I see your point. It's better to live on the "no weapons" level playing field than on the "excessive weapons" playing field.
| Quote: |
Maybe key is having police do arbitrary search and seizure of weapons. |
That would never be allowed in the USA. Arbitrary searches and seizures of any kind, or for any reason are just plain off limits constitutionally.
| Quote: |
If I'm a crook in America, can I prowl around with a knife in my pocket, and claim innocence.. like the knife's for my own protection? Say the cops search my car and find a rifle in the trunk, what can they do? |
In the USA, you need a concealed weapons permit, at least for hand guns. If, for example, the police pull you over and find a pistol in your glove compartment, and you don't have the concealed weapons permit, they can charge you.
I'm not sure about rifles, though. I think you can have hunting rifles in your trunk without any special permits, but hunting rifles are not a very popular weapon among criminals. Heavier rifles, like an AK-47 are simply illegal, with a few exceptions. |
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| Kukhri |
| Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:55 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Senior
Joined: 25 Jan 2009
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Location: North Carolina
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I do not have a source, but some years ago I heard about a statistic that stated murders per capita were higher in the city of New York, than in Afghanistan. The relative safety in Afghanistan was attributed to the deterrent factor of the higher proliferation of firearms. I assume that this estimate was pre-2001.
I'm a big believer in the safety provided by legal concealed weapons permits. In the U.S., legally armed and well trained civilians avert violent crime on a daily basis.
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Co-producer of Red Oasis |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 3034
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I'm starting to prefer the heavily armed option too. I like the idea of violent criminals being afraid for their life every time they consider committing a crime. In an unarmed society that isn't the case.
Attackers can still do horrible things with knives and clubs. All they need is numbers, and the defender becomes totally helpless to fight back. Not quite so with guns. The defender stands a reasonable chance of at least killing one of them. |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 5:37 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 4180
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Okay... so supposing you're desperate to rob a convenience store. And you're pretty sure the clerks have guns and will draw them. How will you prepare? What must you do before the clerks draw their guns?
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| Bunbury |
| Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 9:08 am Post subject: |
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Forum Professor
Joined: 26 Sep 2007
Posts: 1854
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| Pong wrote: |
| Okay... so supposing you're desperate to rob a convenience store. And you're pretty sure the clerks have guns and will draw them. How will you prepare? What must you do before the clerks draw their guns? |
I'd make sure I had a better gun than the clerks, and then I'd shoot the clerks before they could draw their guns.
If everyone has to have a gun that's the start of an arms race and MAD. On the other hand there's a town in some southern state that has a law requiring all citizens to own a gun and the crime rate has dropped. Why? The bad guys have gone to the neighboring towns. If all the towns had the same law then the crooks have no option than to get better armament. Then the clerks have to get better guns and so on...
Question is "Do you think the world would be a better place if we were to manufacture so many guns that everybody had one?" The world would be a much better place for the gun manufactureres. For the rest of us I'm not so sure. |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:00 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 3034
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| Pong wrote: |
| Okay... so supposing you're desperate to rob a convenience store. And you're pretty sure the clerks have guns and will draw them. How will you prepare? What must you do before the clerks draw their guns? |
If you force a desperate person to commit murder on their first try, that usually means they'll have a very short career in crime before they go away for the rest of their lives. In a gun free society, I think that person would go along committing crimes again and again until the net result was just as bad.
I think what most defines a free society is the way it weighs the two values of life and liberty against each other. To have people show up and compel you to give them money against your will is a liberty problem. To have them kill you is a life problem. The question is just how many losses of liberty does it take before you'd rather die? |
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| Pong |
| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 1:59 am Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 08 Apr 2008
Posts: 4180
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| kojax wrote: |
| In a gun free society, I think that person would go along committing crimes again and again until the net result was just as bad. |
Given an equal # of security cameras, cogent witnesses, and police, the crooks get caught eventually and sooner. Armed robbers don't leave cogent witnesses.
Another point I'd like to make: Police work most effectively when they aren't scared for their lives.
I hope you're not suggesting we encourage crooks to leave evidence in the form of bullets in corpses, so we can track them through a sea of guns that way.
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A pong by any other name is still a pong. -williampinn |
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| kojax |
| Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Radioactive Isotope
Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 3034
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| Pong wrote: |
| kojax wrote: |
| In a gun free society, I think that person would go along committing crimes again and again until the net result was just as bad. |
Given an equal # of security cameras, cogent witnesses, and police, the crooks get caught eventually and sooner. Armed robbers don't leave cogent witnesses.
Another point I'd like to make: Police work most effectively when they aren't scared for their lives.
I hope you're not suggesting we encourage crooks to leave evidence in the form of bullets in corpses, so we can track them through a sea of guns that way. |
What I was referring to is that, if we assume equal likelihood of getting caught in both cases, the murderer will spend the rest of their life in prison, or at least a "life sentence" for felony murder, while a petty thief just spends a few years and then we let them out.
In the first place, since it's a bigger risk, fewer people are going to take it. In the second place, the police would have more resources available per crime, because there are fewer total cases landing on their desk. But, it's unlikely that we would fund them any less than we do now, because those few cases they get are so important to us. |
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| Dave Wilson |
| Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2010 7:44 am Post subject: |
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Forum Sophomore
Joined: 08 Nov 2009
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Location: Cumbria UK
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| icewendigo |
| Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2010 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 21 Jun 2006
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wow. wow. I cant get over it, someone slap me 
injustice because there is not enough guns
good example of the saying that goes something like this 'when all you have is a hammer all problems appear to be nails' 
do you have any particular injustice in mind?
by the way, dont a lot of afghan freedom fighters get killed by predator drone missiles even if they pack ak47? and Dont many Nato invasionary occupation troops get blown by IED even if they carry shiny guns?
| Quote: |
| "statistic that stated murders per capita were higher in the city of New York, than in Afghanistan. The relative safety in Afghanistan was attributed to the deterrent factor of the higher proliferation of firearms" |
So the basis of comparison for US citites is now a war torn region? ouch
I think you guys are way off base, off field and in another galaxy;
I know a city where most people are relatively happy, where there is low unemployment, theres almost no crime and no murders, its safe for your kids to walk on their own and you can walk around at 3 am in the middle of the night without any worry. But People dont own guns. Oh and there's no death penalty either, criminal justice is much more leniant then most places too. How can that be if more guns are required for justice and theres no hard-on-crime deterence either?
Dont you guys see that the social environement is a major factor in crime?
If you build a dog-eat-dog rat race society filled with inequality, where your well being hinges on the money you can tear away for yourself, where only those that can afford it have access to health and education and justice, and those that dont get screwed, etc, you just might get more crime even if you make prisons and electric chairs. Better to solve the root causes of crime on many levels so that no one feels the need to comit them in the first place and make them so rare that repression is trivial. 
(of course, being soft on crime or banning guns, just by itself, is not a solution if the entrie society remains a crime and neurosis generating environmnent) |
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