Harris still poses threat to DOOM community

[myk]

AndrewB said:
All the time you hear NRA folk say things like "if everyone had guns then everyone would think twice about causing trouble." OK, that's silly when it comes to street violence, as more guns WOULD increase rates of random violence. However, there IS a hint of truth to that NRA logic in that nobody would attempt large scale acts of door-to-door violence.

The truly relevant points in having guns are personal self-defense; especially if you can equip yourself and better than robbers, gangs or whoever is considered a danger, and secure yourself (surveillace systems come to mind), or recreational activities, such as hunting or shooting sports. Like you said, and now it sounds better; there's a hint of truth; which if you ask me translates only to the fact that any attack against the populance would likely be more costly, which not a surprise anyway considering Rwanda's population was (and is) much poorer than North America's. But it's also clear that if you have a weapon and you're labelled an enemy of the state or the law, you're posing yourself as a threat, and inviting the use of force to counter yours, and that means that if the government did stike at the populance, it would use even greater force; it would have to do so. Thus my point is that gun possession as a check for power is extremely questionable if not contradictory as it all depends on who has those guns and how, which very complex resulting possibilities, which are more easily monitored from a centralized position of power than by the varied mass that is the population.

Quasar said:
Stalin, Zedong, and Hitler agree: Gun control works!

How relevant are those examples? It's only a sign that the State is in conflict with its own population, or part of it. If your culture were to degenerate into such a state, first guerrillas would appear, and then as a result, or at the same time, the state would apply stronger gun control to counter them. In a liberalized country without too much tension gun possession is pretty much a private luxury, and when things deteriorate into a dictatorship in conflict with armed or potentially armed groups, that changes right away.

Gun possession in a liberalized society is the prerogative of the upper and middle classes, which are the ones that can own them to any relevant degree; they can even hire armed guards. When things degenerate, arms spread, perhaps they are banned this or that way, and the poorer people pick them up for use in interne warfare, or civil guerrilla. Curiously also gun possession as a political claim is a sign of distrust of the State, or power or influence over it, particularly considering that "the people" as a whole does not exist, and only a multitude of (if that) vaguely defined groups and types; opposing the State and the private citizen is a delusional idea based more on politics than anything; the state is part of society mixed up in vaious and complex ways, and there is no uinty among private citizens (curiously only the State can provide any unity of that sort, in general, and aside from particular and distinct groups that only minorities will agree upon).

[Quasar]

I think my country has already started down that road after 9/11. PATRIOT Act, illegal spying, detaining persons without charges, deportations, rigged elections. Explain to me how the US government is *not* completely out of control.

[AndrewB]

How relevant are those examples? It's only a sign that the State is in conflict with its own population, or part of it. If your culture were to degenerate into such a state, first guerrillas would appear, and then as a result, or at the same time, the state would apply stronger gun control to counter them.

A state cannot "apply stronger gun control" the way one would apply bugspray. It's a very slow process that happens over decades. Often it doesn't work at all; Canada tried to "apply gun control" as you suggested, but it cost $1b of taxpayers money and was later scrapped because nobody bothered to register their guns. You're suggesting that a genocidal government could ask nicely for people to hand in their guns and the people would do it. I can't emphasise enough how silly that is.

Let's summarize again:

1) Governments and militaries CAN turn against their own country.
2) Governments and militaries HAVE turned against their own country MANY TIMES in recent history.
3) None of those countries had armed populaces.
4) If those countries' populaces WERE armed, such genocides would be cancelled before they started because otherwise the government would be outnumbered immensely and face catastrophic casualties.

I haven't yet seen a single response from you that's even relevant to what I'm talking about.

[myk]

AndrewB said:
A state cannot "apply stronger gun control" the way one would apply bugspray. It's a very slow process that happens over decades. Often it doesn't work at all; Canada tried to "apply gun control" as you suggested, but it cost $1b of taxpayers money and was later scrapped because nobody bothered to register their guns.

Heh, I'm sure the Canadain arms control legislation attempts had a lot to do with the government considering some sort of genocide.

You're suggesting that a genocidal government could ask nicely for people to hand in their guns and the people would do it. I can't emphasise enough how silly that is.

Nicely my ass. And it's not silly at all, since for genocide what you need is selective arms control. Take Nazi Germany's example, where guns were banned for Jewish people, as an obvious example.

1) Governments and militaries CAN turn against their own country.

What does this even mean? Evidently in any situation where the government turns upon its people, its never all of them, unless its a purely foreign initiative. And even then, that's relative.

3) None of those countries had armed populaces.

Eh, Rwanda's conflict started with a relatively weak government fighting a weaker Tutsi guerrilla, eventually the government increased its (belligerent) power and organized things to weaken Tutsis and opposing Hutus to bring about the genocide (part of the process of centralizing power through brutality), with support of the civillian Hutu-extremist administration and paramilitary forces (basically civilians involved in military fighting).

4) If those countries' populaces WERE armed, such genocides would be cancelled before they started because otherwise the government would be outnumbered immensely and face catastrophic casualties.

As shown in the cases we breezed over, what you need to do to achieve genocide is weaken a certain faction of society; race, religion, political affiliation, etc., by negating their economic, political and defensive power. The government never attacks "everybody" nor does "everybody" align themselves in the same way if a dictatorial government starts or increases hostilities against a portion of the population. You don't ban or restrict guns "in general" if you aim for genocide; you ban it for the targets and encourage (or let alone) arms use in groups or factions loyal to (or neutral to) the dictatorship.

Not that anything of the sort is going to happen in the foreseeable future, but illegal aliens, perhaps extending to some of the minorities they represent, to name a simple example, could eventually be subject to genocide in the US if society went staight to Hell, due to the distribution of wealth, arms, and rights.

I haven't yet seen a single response from you that's even relevant to what I'm talking about.

I'm sure you didn't mean to troll there. Anyhow, everything I have said has been about what sort of importance or significance arms control may have, plus what makes a genocide possible, and how private arms control legislation can be tied to genocide in cases where that applies.