Summations Only

Nobody is suggesting that trained police officers should not have guns.Cops get exactly the sort of constant training necessary to respond in a situation like this.Concealed-carry civilians do not. See the video upthread. You've simply brought us a red herring.

Not even remotely like police training. Again, see the video posted upthread.Cops get continual training, not just a once-and-done session. Their training focuses not only on marksmanship and care of the weapon, but also on responding to a crisis.Concealed-carry training in no way includes crisis training. They quite simply do not equip permit-holders with the skills needed to respond to a sudden, unexpected, immediate threat. Their reaction times are too slow, their physiological responses are untrained - not all training is the same, CS. Mandating a dozen or three hours at the shooting range with a 2-hour mandatory course on the rules and care of firearms has nothing whatsoever to do with actually using your gun in an emergency.In a crisis, a defensive shooter needs to be able to correctly distinguish friends from foes, to ensure that innocents are not in the line of fire in case of a miss, must have extremely rapid reaction time, must have muscle-memory-level training to take cover and draw the weapon, and so on, all in an extremely high-stress, panic-filled scenario. These are high-intensity skills - they require constant reinforcement, you lose them if you don't train for a month or so. That's not the sort of training that concealed-carry permits require. That sort of training isn't even offered.ABE:All you've done is add equivocation to your red herring. Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

No - the NRA isn't that smart.They want civilians to be armed. They want quarter-trained civilians with guns in enclosed spaces with a bunch of children in the case of schools and shopping malls.Cops would be a rather large step up from that.

Yes! Or, you could go the other way - buy a t-shirt bearing a giant skull, brood about how "criminals" don't deserve to live, and call yourself the Punisher. You don't get many girls, but you get to make the streets "safe" by making them run with blood.Let's be honest - guns used for the prevention of crime by non-police are essentially the acceptance of vigilante justice. The appeal of taking "justice" into one's own hands is a strong one, reinforced by our media (and I'll admit, I enjoy superhero movies as much as anyone else), but it's also not something we actually want to deal with.

The addendum to this argument is that when you can use a gun, you don't need it. A man stealing your wallet or safe or TV is not trying to kill you, so you don't need to resort to deadly force as your life is not in immanent danger. When your life is in immanent danger...you won't have the opportunity to retrieve and use a gun in nearly every circumstance. So why have a gun?

False equivocation. Nobody pretends to be able to acheive full elimination of firearms or criminals with guns.Britain's gun restrictions have resulted in less incidence of gun-related crime. That was the goal, and it's the goal of considering similar restrictions in the US. The goal never has been to eliminate all firearms for its own sake.You're just building up straw men with your equivocation of a statistical reduction into a binary sort of pass/fail. It's irrelevant, and it isn't fooling anyone except you.

By that logic, your inability to legally own a rocket-propelled grenade, an armed Abrams tank, or an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead all count as "infringement."Just as the freedom of speech is limited such that you cannot purposefully incite violence or panic, so too is the Second Amendment limited.The question has never at any point been whether any limits at all should exist - that question has been answered long ago and is supported by much precedent.The question has always been where that line should be drawn, how much restriction can and should be applied. The Constitution grants power to Congress to regulate what can and cannot be sold, and to whom, when state lines are crossed. Many state Constitutions allow that particular state to regulate commerce in the same way within its own borders.It's the same power that allows the government to regulate who can purchase alcohol and tobacco, at what ages, and what the manufacturers can put in their products and what they need to put on the label.The Second Amendment does not specify what arms may be borne...it merely affirms the right to bear some type of arms. It doesn't say "The right to bear absolutely any type of weapon that has been or ever will be produced shall not be infringed."Neither does it guarantee the right to purchase any weapons at all.

That's not entirely true. Mutually assured destruction has proven to work extremely well as a deterrent.The net effect is that if, say, Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon, the US would not be able to "simply" perform the sort of military invasion and "regime change" that was done in Iraq. The presence of a nuclear deterrent serves as a shield against both nuclear and conventional attack.From that perspective, the world is safer when minimally rational actors possess nuclear weapons. Now, that might also mean the continued existence of brutal regimes that we would rather change, but it prevents war.The danger of nuclear weapons is where an irrational actor comes into possession; someone who doesn't know how (or doesn't care) to play out the Prisoner's Dilemma. Al Qaeda, for example.Only an idiot would give a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization or otherwise allow a warhead to be used even in a covert fashion; analysis of the fallout from a nuclear initiation can readily identify the source of the fissile material used, and the source nation would be attacked in retribution (in other words, if North Korea gave Al Qaeda a nuke that was then detonated in the US, the US would quickly be able to tell that North Korea was the source, and would retaliate).I'm not terribly afraid of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons - Israel already has nukes themselves, and so does the US, and Iran is well aware of the results of actually using a nuclear weapon. I think an Iranian nuclear deterrent may prevent an "Iraq Part II: Iran" invasion from becoming a possibility, and I think that would be a good thing.I'm much more concerned with North Korea, who already has nuclear weapons. I'm simply not certain whether I can consider them to be rational actors - the propaganda machine is too deep, the echo chamber is too loud, and I can't tell if their leaders actually swallow their own bullshit.

It demonstrably has not. In WWII, long before the first use of nuclear weapons, conventional destructive power was already capable of destroying a city more thoroughly than a nuke. Despite the availability of extremely large quantities of conventional bombs, despite the well-known ability to burn and bomb entire cities to rubble, war was not averted.Today, fuel-air bombs like the MOAB have multi-kiloton destructive capability, just as the first nuclear weapons...but nobody talks about a "MOAB deterrent."Total annihilation of a nation's infrastructure could be performed through conventional means - we basically did that in Iraq. Mass casualties, too.Nuclear weapons function as a deterrent because of the extra "fear-factor" they add to the equation. In large part this is because we can put multiple warheads onto a single ICBM and wipe out a large amount of infrastructure (and population) with a single weapon.Note that new nuclear powers like North Korea don't have that ability. Relatively short-range missiles only, for them, with single warheads that have a much lower yield than what long-term members of the Nuclear Club tend to have. That's cold-war hyperbole, GDR. Nuclear war is certainly to be avoided, but to annihilate all human civilization would require a full international nuclear exchange targeting everybody. We're talking the US and Russia and China and Israel and Britain and everybody launching, not only at each other, but at everywhere. Even assuming the total nuclear stockpile of the world is sufficient to destroy civilization (which is a rather large assumption), the warring countries would have to purposefully target nations other than each other.A nuclear exchange can destroy nations, it can possibly destroy cultures, but it won't annihilate all of civilization. Nuclear Winter is a myth. Nuclear weapons will annihilate their targets, fallout will provide a hazard for the surrounding area and to a lesser degree distant regions downwind, and secondary casualties will result from the destruction of the infrastructure. We could functionally wipe a small country "off the map," but we wouldn't kill off every single inhabitant; nuclear weapons wouldn't "glass" the country.Look at it this way, GDR - more than one conventional war, which would include mass bombings, tank invasions, and boots ont he ground, has been avoided through the deterrent provided by nuclear weapons. If Iran's development of a nuclear weapon prevents the US chicken-hawks from launching another invasion, lives will be saved. The likelihood of Iran using that weapon in an aggressive act is vanishingly small - they already have a military, they could already attack Israel or try to smuggle weapons into the US for terrorists, and they do not because they are, behind the propaganda facade, rational actors who do not actually seek a military confrontation of any sort. They're afraid of the US pulling an Iraq, and justifiably so. They see a nuclear deterrent as a functional anti-invasion wall, and it would indeed work that way. I see no problem with letting them have exactly that. The understanding always exists that, if a nuclear weapon is actually used in an act of aggression, basically the rest of the world will annihilate your nation. The sort of suicidal idiots that blow themselves up in markets do not tend to rise to positions of national leadership.

Individual gun owners are intrinsically different from states on more points than I can reasonably address in a single post. A single burglar can be killed by a single gun owner, yet an invading nation has not in modern history ever been wiped out by a defending nation. While we cannot reasonably count on individual gun owners to be rational actors, we can reasonably count on heads of state to comprehend the consequences of military action. While a home invader has no foreknowledge of whether his target is armed, nuclear states tend to make it very well known that they have nuclear capability (even the "open secret" of Israel). An individual burglar puts only his own life and that of his victim at risk, while states place their entire populations, their cultures, their ways of life on the line. I can go on, at length, if required.We have had some close calls - but in each instance, we saw evidence that nuclear powers are extremely reluctant at nearly every level (at least in terms of those relevant to "the button," not considering the public at large who are generally idiots) to actually launch a nuclear weapon. We've managed to go nearly 60 years without a nuclear attack - that's not a bad track record. "Never" is a strong word. Nuclear weapons research led to nuclear power, as just one example that even you should agree is positive. Nuclear "weapons" are also envisioned as a possible propulsion method for space exploration. Absolutes are rarely useful, Dronester.You know the way to persuade me - show me the relative costs in human lives between a world with and a world without nuclear weapons. Right now, I think nuclear proliferation is less catastrophic than certain reactionaries would have us all believe.

quote:

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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

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I very much like this quote from Eisenhower, Dronester. But the real world forbids us from becoming actual pacifists - defense spending will always exist. The question is simply where to spend that money. We've already begun reducing our nuclear arsenal, which I think is a good thing - there's just no point to having a race for the most nuclear weapons, it's not about numbers, it's about the ability to keep a strong deterrent, and we can do that just fine with fewer weapons.And I'd rather spend money on keeping a moderate nuclear arsenal that we likely will never need to use and reduce the conventional forces that make force such an easy option in foreign diplomacy.If America is actually invaded. you can be your ass we'll use nuclear weapons as a defense, and that's the point of the deterrent. A reduced conventional force would simply force us to let go of the "world police" role and stick to actual defense rather than invading more Iraqs.

Hi Dronester,Your reply was lengthy but comprised very few actual points, so I'll forgo repeating myself in a similarly lengthy post.9/11 was the act of a terrorist organization, not a state. It was, by definition, not an act of war. Nuclear weapons cannot provide a deterrent against terrorist acts - they can only provide a deterrent against acts of war from an established state. You mentioned various other terrorist acts...but nothing ont he state level. Hamas is the closest, but Israel won;t nuke a part of what it sees as it's own territory...the Israel/Palestine conflict bears more resemblance to an internal dispute, like a "cold" civil war, than it does to a foreign aggressor.How many nuclear powers have been invaded since they attained nuclear capability? I'll wait.Even Bush was well aware of the consequences of military action, Dronester - he knew full well that Iraq could not retaliate. Sure, the war was bloodier than he expected, but you'll note that he didn't attack, for example, North Korea, because they do have the ability to retaliate (on our military base in South Korea, as well as out strong allies the South Koreans themselves).If Iraq had actually had nuclear weapons...there would have been no invasion, because sending troops against a nuclear-armed state would have meant risking our troops or our allies being nuked.As usual, you argue using a series of red herrings, irrelevancies, straw men, and lots and lots of Bush-hating. I get it. You hate Bush. I hate the shrub, too. But the monkey pictures don't advance your argument. And neither does bringing up 9/11 and Al Qaeda in a discussion about nuclear deterrents preventing acts of war from foreign states.

...are roaming gangs of violent criminals numbering more than 20 individuals a problem where you live?Can you name an actual event, say something reported in a newspaper, that would duplicate your hypothetical "I-need-lots-of-bullets" scenario, involving double-digit offenders presenting an immanent lethal danger to a private residence?Because if you really want to play the "what if" game, we can all go at it forever with ever more ridiculously unlikely scenarios, but we'll never actually be talking about the real world.

ICANT, the only way you could have better proved my point and descended farther into Crazy Town would be if you expressed the need for a contingency against an invasion from outer space.Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

I imagine it would look something like the Great Depression, or perhaps Germany after WWI. You know...historical examples of real financial meltdowns.Neither of which resemble the bizarre survivalist fantasy in your head, where violent gangs roam the streets hunting innocent people in large numbers.

Which makes the data suspect, it makes the evidence less strong than a similar study with a larger sample size would provide.What it does not do is allow you to simply disregard it as meaningless. When the only evidence available is a weak study, the rational response is to slightly adjust your expectations of reality pending additional information.Instead, what you appear to be doing is simply saying "that doesn't count."I'd love to see a more comprehensive study - I'm sure every intellectually honest person concerned with the topic would. Feel free to find us one, regardless of the results.But the proper response to even a large degree of uncertainty in the presence of weak evidence is not "we have no idea." The proper response is "well, it's not much, but it looks like it's pointing this way."ABE: Your criticism of the study as "outdated" is somewhat worse off, as the age of a study is irrelevant so long as the relevant context of the study remains constant...much the way that Gregor Mendel's work with peas is still perfectly valid today even in the presence of a much deeper and broader selection of work on the topic since. Since, of course, you would have mentioned the invalidating changes that time has introduced if such changes had happened instead of simply attacking the age itself, I presume that you have no rational basis for dismissal due to age, and are simply trying to handwave evidence you personally don;t like.I'm reminded of a scene in "Liar, Liar" where Jim Carey makes an objection, and in response to the judge's query as to the grounds of the objection, Carey says "because it destroys my case!"Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.