Guns don't kill people ....

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Adak

And do you sir, have ANY evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, showing that unarmed, defenseless people, are safe from violence?

snip

Me.

I'm unarmed. I'm "defenseless" (by your tortured definition). I'm safe from violence. I'm not invisible, I'm not in hiding or in an undisclosed location. I'm not a sheep or a sheeple. This is FACTUAL, anecdotal, empirical, verifiable, first person evidence.

Will this turn your ridiculous argument? I believe it won't. Perhaps you are thinking of how to be safe from some hypothetical threat of violence. Well, in that* case, no, I'm not safe. But hey, I'm thinking of a different hypothetical threat of violence. Yeah, I'm safe from that one.

* There is ALWAYS some hypothetical threat that can be conjured up in your imagination or mine that could be prevented by having a firearm. It is equally likely that a different imaginary situation can be thought up where no firearm is needed. Just as it's equally possible to think up some situation where the firearm is present but inadequate. What. The. Hell. Ever. A far better, more rational, helpful, useful exercise of our intelligence is to think about where firearms *are* a good idea (protip, the answer is NOT everywhere at all times).

[Adak]

Originally Posted by BigV

Me.

I'm unarmed. I'm "defenseless" (by your tortured definition). I'm safe from violence. I'm not invisible, I'm not in hiding or in an undisclosed location. I'm not a sheep or a sheeple. This is FACTUAL, anecdotal, empirical, verifiable, first person evidence.

Will this turn your ridiculous argument? I believe it won't. Perhaps you are thinking of how to be safe from some hypothetical threat of violence. Well, in that* case, no, I'm not safe. But hey, I'm thinking of a different hypothetical threat of violence. Yeah, I'm safe from that one.

* There is ALWAYS some hypothetical threat that can be conjured up in your imagination or mine that could be prevented by having a firearm. It is equally likely that a different imaginary situation can be thought up where no firearm is needed. Just as it's equally possible to think up some situation where the firearm is present but inadequate. What. The. Hell. Ever. A far better, more rational, helpful, useful exercise of our intelligence is to think about where firearms *are* a good idea (protip, the answer is NOT everywhere at all times).

You are ONE person - not "people". Your experience is the fruit of people who fought WITH GUNS, to give you a better (and yes, a safer), place to live.

Would we even HAVE a country, if we had no guns, and simply asked King George VI, "would you please leave us alone?".

How about those Kurds in Iraq? They had almost no guns, and when they displeased Saddam Hussein, he had their whole town killed with poison gas.

What about the Israeli's? Would they be alive today if it wasn't for their guns? Didn't they live without guns before the Holocaust? How did that work out, pray tell?

How about those 8,000 or so men and boys in Srebrenica? They had no guns. The Dutch army was there under UN auspices to protect them, remember? The Serbs just had too many guns, so they stood down, and surrendered.

The Serbs then demanded the Dutch uniforms to embarrass them, and took the men and boys from the city, into the forest - and killed every one of them.

Or go back a few years to an earlier massacre - same place (roughly), but this time it was of the Serbs, not the Bosniaks, who were slaughtered: Javor and Korita massacre's, 1941.

How about the Armenians in the early 1900's? They were pretty well unarmed. So the Turks slaughtered them by the tens of thousands.

How about the American Indian? Tomahawks, knives, and bows and arrows, were no match for guns. Did it work out well for them?

How about the Aztecs? Cortez just killed them off, lickety split - because he had guns and metal swords, and the Aztecs didn't. About the same, for the Inca's. No guns, you die.

Rosicrucians? Knights Templar? Jews in the UK, in the 1600's? All slaughtered or driven out.

You could fill up an entire encyclopedia with all the different groups that have been massacred because they didn't have guns (or have enough guns, or know how to use them well, etc.).

We didn't outlaw airplanes after 9/11 -- and we don't outlaw spoons, knives and forks, because of the obesity problem. That would be stupid.

Same with guns. Guns allowed us to be free, in the first place.

To be people - not sheeple.

You've simply been lucky, but disarming is a very dangerous decision.

Looking back and using history as a guide, it's been a fatal decision or circumstance, for millions.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Adak

You are ONE person - not "people". Your experience is the fruit of people who fought WITH GUNS, to give you a better (and yes, a safer), place to live.

Would we even HAVE a country, if we had no guns, and simply asked King George VI, "would you please leave us alone?".
.

I'm no great fan of counterfactual history, but judging by the political landscape of Britain at the time, and the direction of travel in public discourse, I'd say possibly, but maybe half a century later. It maybe that there was always going to be some element of fighting, but the Napoleonic wars may well have blunted Britain's appetite for armed conflict, as well as heightened already apparent popular unease at her treatment of the American colonies.

I don't know how much of the British side of that whole period you get taught over there. There was a good deal of popular support for the American colonists amongst the British public.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Maybe that's why George brought in Hessian mercenaries.

[IamSam]

Originally Posted by Adak

There's no need to shoot a drunk who is causing no one any serious harm.

He's drunk, and he's trying to get inside a hotel where he'd like a room, or help to find his room - he's not trying to rape or kill or kidnap anyone.

There's no need to fire a gun unless the threat is very immediate, and very serious.

Real People are armed. Sheeple People rely on their invisibility cloaks to avoid being a victim.

The guy wasn't just drunk, he was high on dog knows what. The doors leading into motel rooms were pretty obvious - even to a drunk. He was attempting to break into the laundry room located down a short hallway from the front desk and all that cash. And he was very mean and very big.

Under circumstances like that I figure the guy could be capable of doing anything. He was certainly doing a number on that door, and I might have been next on his list. The threat was very immediate when we stood there face to face and very serious as far as I was concerned. If I'd shot him with a gun instead of pepper spray, I would have been justified, and my local cop friends would have backed me up. Thanks to my handy pepper spray, I was spared all the complications of the aftermath of shooting someone with a gun.

Real people try to find the least violent way of dealing with a situation