If you read my reply, you'll see that I'm saying that Jews being armed would have done neither. You wouldn't have been able to stop the killing of Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals without confronting the military. Gathering folks for concentration camps was one of their duties.
Jesus Christ Almighty. You don't get the point. It's not (just) about stopping "the killing of Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals". It's about not being herded like animals to the slaughter. How would you rather die? In a gas chamber, naked and dehumanized, choking on cyanide along side of naked women and children, or fighting for your life in a hail of gun fire, possibly taking out a few of the oppressors in the process?
I'll take the latter, sweetie.
Word to the wise: never give up your power.
I'm sure that, if those who were rounded up had known of their ultimate fates in concentration camps, many would have chosen a more proximate death. But they wouldn't have needed guns to do that.
I didn't realize that the power that you were advocating--the one that nobody should ever give up--was the right to be shot to death in a hail of gunfire.
There’s a conceivable scenario in which almost anything could be the thing that saves me and my family. Cancer might kill the person who was going to murder us. You can’t decide what’s a reasonable way of defending oneself by looking only at the best possible cases.
You have to weigh the realistic chances of the positive scenarios against the realistic chances of the cases in which the means of defense does more harm than good. I’ve never had to do it with ball rounds, but defending a house with firearms is harder than it looks in the movies. You have too many chances of accidentally shooting a family member or a neighbor, of deliberately killing an innocent person who you only thought was a threat, or of getting shot first by attackers who have the initiative.
Yes, there are conceivable circumstances in which the good guy with the gun is the hero. I don’t think the realistic odds make private gun ownership a reasonable means of defense. Appeals to emotion, like suggesting that all the Jews of Nazi Germany needed was a Second Amendment, are a bad way to deal with this serious issue.
I grew up literally surrounded by rifles. My father’s collection of historical weapons hung on the rec-room walls. I grew up on army bases, where everyone’s dad was some kind of soldier. I’ve been a range safety officer with twenty new recruits firing rifles beside me. I hunt deer every year. Firearms to me are like chainsaws: dangerous tools that have their appropriate use but have to be used with care. Only a lot more so, because chainsaws can’t hurt anyone from a distance.
If you read my reply, you'll see that I'm saying that Jews being armed would have done neither. You wouldn't have been able to stop the killing of Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals without confronting the military. Gathering folks for concentration camps was one of their duties.
Jesus Christ Almighty. You don't get the point. It's not (just) about stopping "the killing of Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals". It's about not being herded like animals to the slaughter. How would you rather die? In a gas chamber, naked and dehumanized, choking on cyanide along side of naked women and children, or fighting for your life in a hail of gun fire, possibly taking out a few of the oppressors in the process?
I'll take the latter, sweetie.
Word to the wise: never give up your power.
Why wouldn’t the military just drop a JDAM on your house?
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
j"Physics Guy" wrote:Yes, there are conceivable circumstances in which the good guy with the gun is the hero. I don’t think the realistic odds make private gun ownership a reasonable means of defense. Appeals to emotion, like suggesting that all the Jews of Nazi Germany needed was a Second Amendment, are a bad way to deal with this serious issue.
I grew up literally surrounded by rifles. My father’s collection of historical weapons hung on the rec-room walls. I grew up on army bases, where everyone’s dad was some kind of soldier. I’ve been a range safety officer with twenty new recruits firing rifles beside me. I hunt deer every year. Firearms to me are like chainsaws: dangerous tools that have their appropriate use but have to be used with care. Only a lot more so, because chainsaws can’t hurt anyone from a distance.
Totally agree.
We need a heavy-handed gun crackdown, a federal gun roundup and meltdown. Basically, get rid of all magazine-based pistols and all non-hunting rifles. And even get rid of semi-auto hunting rifles.
Real sportsman don't need anything beyond bolt or pump action. Learn to shoot, Republicans.
The older right-wing guy on the walk who watches Fox news all day and goes into panic every time there's a school shooting because he fears authorities will come after his guns; he has like, a side-by-side 12 gauge and a couple other hunting rifles. I'll find out for sure next time I see him but I don't recall him ever mentioning owning any gun that would be at risk for legislation.
