No, the person you kill won't be able to live with the fact that you can live with killing someone over hub caps.
There's no way to back out by saying "it's a hypothetical situation". You were asked what you would do. You said you would initiate violence, and then said you would be willing to escalate it to killing. Great.
If you are now backing down, and saying what you say doesn't mean anything, it only means that you haven't thought any situation through properly. You are the kind of person we don't want carrying a gun for self defense, even if there were tests and rules and records and such. The only people we would ever want to carry guns are the extreme pacifists who would NEVER initiate violence, and do everything possible first to avoid confrontation, including loss of property or backing down.
Only once violence has been initiated by the other person, and it looks like they might intend to kill (or rape, if we're going to include that), only at that point should responding with force even be an option.
At no other point, not for hub caps, not for a car, not for anything.
You take extreme positions by positing hypothetical situations which confirm your position. Your argument is built on a straw house that confirms your personal views without exception. Despite how I feel on the issue, your argument is no more valid than Steve's.
Your making it about the thing being stolen. You don't believe it's ok to kill someone over property. Guess what, I agree with you. You don't think I should initiate violence if I have a gun, but it's ok to initiate violence if I don't have a gun because the gun makes it easy to kill them? What if I have a sword? What if I just plan to beat them to death with my fists? The gun is just a tool, I hope you have as much problem with me confronting someone with a sword as with a gun.
You only think any force is appropriate if I am being killed, or raped. I don't agree.
I'm making it about the reaction the person I'm confronting has to me. I believe it is ok to confront them, even knowing that by doing so they may respond violently to me. If they do, and I think the best option is to respond with force, I will do so.
I never said I would shoot someone 100 percent of the time if they were stealing my hubcaps, I did say that it is ok to arm myself before confronting someone who is breaking the law and taking my things.
It's not about the house, the car, the hubcaps, it's about the violence they put on me when I confront them about something they should not be doing.
You take extreme positions by positing hypothetical situations which confirm your position. Your argument is built on a straw house that confirms your personal views without exception. Despite how I feel on the issue, your argument is no more valid than Steve's.
I didn't pose the hub cap stealing situation. I wanted clarification from Aaron that his proposed course of action was what he actually said it was. After confirming this, and me pointing it out, he then decided that the hypothetical situation was meaningless, even after defending his course of action twice.
If the situation was about home invasion or rape, I'd be willing to think he isn't utterly confused. But for a car? For hub caps? Really? Initiating violence with the willingness to cause death?
Also, any sort of absolute position is naive and dogmatic. The world is not cut and dry, no black and white view. Sorry it doesn't fit into tiny little boxes that make moral and ethical decisions easy for you.
Also, any sort of absolute position is naive and dogmatic. The world is not cut and dry, no black and white view. Sorry it doesn't fit into tiny little boxes that make moral and ethical decisions easy for you.
I know. The point is that the "not cut and dry" and "no black and white" and the "no tiny boxes" is what allows for stand-your-ground laws and the deaths of people like Trayvon Martin. I want to get as many people away from the grey area as possible, and away from even the possibility of the death-by-gun box.
My entire point about being a non-killing absolutist is that even getting people to come a little way over to my stated position of argument and logic would involve the massive reduction in loss of life.
Also, any sort of absolute position is naive and dogmatic. The world is not cut and dry, no black and white view. Sorry it doesn't fit into tiny little boxes that make moral and ethical decisions easy for you.
I think he already said there were some circumstances where it's OK, so the "absolutist" descriptor is clearly somewhat hyperbolic.
replace give them a kick in the fanny and use "grab them by the shoulder and push them off my car" Or something similar that uses force, but I said it so lets stick with kick them in the fanny.
For this debate I'll continue on about hubcaps because I'm not trying to trap you with defending myself against marauders or stopping my daughters rape or some appeal to emotion.
A reasonable person wouldn't respond to me kicking them in the fanny with enough violence to justify me using deadly force. It is not unreasonable for me to expect them not to attack me. If they act out of reason and start to hurt me then I have the right to defend myself. They started the situation by stealing something.
The law allows me to use reasonable force to stop a crime happening in my presence. A swift kick in the fanny is not unreasonable. Them responding with enough force to seriously hurt me or kill me is unreasonable and justifies my use of a firearm to defend myself.
Do you think people can be expected to react completely rationally after suddenly, without warning, being kicked from behind?
How much violence is "enough violence"? If you're holding a gun and they get up close to you, you're risking them taking the gun from you. Will you now refrain from using the gun because they might simply be lashing out, even with that risk in mind?
I never actually said I'd kick them in the nuts either.
I should have taken more time when writing earlier. I was at one time a pistol instructor. I wouldn't go to kick someone in the fanny if I already had my gun out. It presents to much or a risk.
I said I'd probably kick them in the fanny and it was meant as a light hearted joke and I should have left it out.
The original question was what would I do if I had my gun on them and they just calmly kept stealing the hubcaps. What would I do then.
If I wanted to stop them I would re holster and go kick them in the fanny. Or get my roommate to kick them in the fanny. What I would really do is probably throw a rock at them or hit them with a stick from a distance. Something that kept my distance from them.
I'm trying to articulate my root belief, I'm not backing down from the base statement that I would initiate force against them and if they responded with enough force to cause me harm I would be willing to shoot them.
I believe that it is their response with violence to me trying to stop them from committing a crime against me that justifies me using more force, up to and including deadly force with a gun. If blame lays anywhere it is in their initial illegal action that fault lies.
Rym: If I believed the ATF and the local government wouldn't use registration information as an eventual tool for confiscation I'd have no problem with national registration and tracking.
I find the whole "registration leads to confiscation" argument very weak indeed, personally. It does enable confiscation, but I think you should have more confidence in your society.
Controversy arose over a September 8 city-wide order by New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass to local police, U.S. Army National Guard soldiers, and Deputy U.S. Marshals to confiscate all civilian-held firearms. "No one will be able to be armed," Compass said. "Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns." Seizures were carried out without warrant, and in some cases with excessive force; one instance captured on film involved 58 year old New Orleans resident Patricia Konie. Konie stayed behind, in her well provisioned home, and had an old revolver for protection. A group of police entered the house, and when she refused to surrender her revolver, she was tackled and it was removed by force. Konie's shoulder was fractured, and she was taken into police custody for failing to surrender her firearm.” ..... "After refusing to admit that it had any seized firearms, the city revealed in mid-March that it did have a cache of some 1000 firearms seized after the hurricane; this disclosure came after the NRA filed a motion in court to hold the city in contempt for failure to comply with the U.S. District Court's earlier order to return all seized firearms."
In the political aftermath of that there was a bill to make it more illegal then it already was. However considering that it was not legal to begin with, this bill does not give me the warm fuzzies about it not happening again in a disaster situation. Based on things like this happening I disagree with you that I should have more confidence in society.
Initiating violence and then using a gun "in self defense" is exactly what George Zimmerman did.
While somehow having no offensive wounding, and Martin's wounds aside from the gunshot were offensive wounds. There's a lot of things that are not clear in the case, but the evidence does not bear out that Zimmerman physically attacked Martin other than shooting him. It was Martin, Not Zimmerman who escalated the verbal confrontation to violence, and Zimmerman did not use violence until he was having his head smashed into the pavement repeatedly.
The reason that I do not want a registry of all firearms and firearm owners is that I do not have confidence that it would not be abused.
A quick thought experiment for those who would like a registry. How would you feel about a registry of everyone and what constitutional rights they exercised. A database that said:
John Doe, 28, Atlanta Georgia Pro Government forum posts: 20 Anti government forum posts: 150 Pro gun forum posts: 60 Anti gun forum posts: 0 Pro government blog posts: 1 Ant government blog posts: 8 Pro government assemblies attended: 0 Anti government assemblies attended: 7 Voting History Republican Votes: 56 Democratic Vote: 0 Arrest history Times arrested:0 Times refused search of vehicle: 2 Times refused search of home: 0 Etc..... Does anyone think that there is no one in any government entity that would abuse this information? IRS would not start accidentally auditing republicans more then democrats in a democrat administration and visa versa?
How would a database like this with every right a person exercised be different than a registry of every gun owner and what they owned? Both are exercising their legal rights.
If you are okay with a Second Amendment and not a Fist and Fourth Amendment registry, what is your reasoning?
You take extreme positions by positing hypothetical situations which confirm your position. Your argument is built on a straw house that confirms your personal views without exception. Despite how I feel on the issue, your argument is no more valid than Steve's.
Which argument as you referring too? I want to be sure it was an argument I made and not an interpretation of someone else's argument.
I think we need a listing of all the points we agree and disagree on because I am seeing some arguments that keep circling back into the discussion even after we have already reached an agreement on said argument. I am guilty of bringing these arguments back in as are some others.
1) I think we all agree that background checks are a good thing. I think the only disagreement centers on privacy issues related to who has access to the data.
2) I think we all agree that proper training is essential to being a good gun owner.
3) Use of deadly force, while some posts appear to be of the 'shoot first' nature no one has explicitly stated this view and more often it is just an issue of post brevity. I feel most of us either believe in a sliding scale on the issue or hold a view that requires deadly force only be used if you are 100% certain you are about to die.
4) gun registration has very little if any agreement.
Feel free to add or point out where I am wrong.
Mother fucker! I said that two pages ago and I was ignored!
In the political aftermath of that there was a bill to make it more illegal then it already was. However considering that it was not legal to begin with, this bill does not give me the warm fuzzies about it not happening again in a disaster situation. Based on things like this happening I disagree with you that I should have more confidence in society.
What are the other "things"? This has all the bearings of a one-off event that happened due to panicked people making some bad decisions. Moreover, those events were followed up by major reforms to the New Orleans Police Department.
Besides, there's an argument to be made that the presence of a gun registry could in fact improve the circumstances in the aftermath of a major disaster because police would be able to use it confirm that a firearm isn't stolen or tied to criminal activity, and in alleviating those concerns confiscation could even be made less likely.
How would a database like this with every right a person exercised be different than a registry of every gun owner and what they owned? Both are exercising their legal rights.
If you are okay with a Second Amendment and not a Fist and Fourth Amendment registry, what is your reasoning?
Yeah, and there totally shouldn't be any records at all of any kinds of legal proceedings, because no-one wants Fifth, Sixth, Seventh or Eighth Amendment registries, do they!? A gun registry isn't even equivalent to a Second Amendment registry, because guns aren't the only thing covered by "arms".
I think it's a pretty silly comparison to make, considering that the purpose of a gun registry has nothing to do with people exercising their rights, but rather is a matter of making it much easier to crack down on straw purchasers.
1) I think we all agree that background checks are a good thing. I think the only disagreement centers on privacy issues related to who has access to the data.
Obviously privacy is a concern and should be given significant consideration. Has anyone said otherwise?
3) Use of deadly force, while some posts appear to be of the 'shoot first' nature no one has explicitly stated this view and more often it is just an issue of post brevity. I feel most of us either believe in a sliding scale on the issue or hold a view that requires deadly force only be used if you are 100% certain you are about to die.
100% certainty is stupid and should never be required for anything ever.
4) gun registration has very little if any agreement.
Yeah, that's clear. There are some downsides to gun registration, and it's not a good thing in and of itself, although I think those downsides are relatively minor. The thing is, though, if we do agree on background checks per point (1), it's also important to recognise that they're not very useful if people are avoiding them via straw purchases or similar means. That tradeoff seems to make a registry clearly worthwhile.
On that note, let's talk about registration a little more. Yes, there is a legitimate privacy concern, but doesn't that just mean it needs to be done carefully and with proper oversight?
If access to such a registry requires a warrant in relation to a specific person or a specific gun, can it still be effective? Isn't that a sufficient privacy protection?
Also, for clarification: what are the purposes for a gun registry? How effective would one actually be? Are there better alternatives?
To have a clear list of who has what guns and how many of them are in cerculation. So that if one is stolen or used in a crime then the police can see if it was an illigal gun or not and where it came from. It could also be used as a way of keeping track of what guns were being prechased and what guns were being used in crimes.
I could see added to that a gun range that it is registered to.
(Sorry for spelling a mix of work and just being out of it).
Before we can realisticly expect a gun registry to exist in the US we would need the government to begin honoring the intent of the fourth amendment.
Otherwise I still do not see the benefit of a registry to gun owners great enough for them to give up their privacy. If the concern is tracking stolen weapons then we create a stolen weapon database. The only other use I am seeing is for it to provide an easy way for the government to conduct fishing expeditions.
Comments
soon. Our loss.There's no way to back out by saying "it's a hypothetical situation". You were asked what you would do. You said you would initiate violence, and then said you would be willing to escalate it to killing. Great.
If you are now backing down, and saying what you say doesn't mean anything, it only means that you haven't thought any situation through properly. You are the kind of person we don't want carrying a gun for self defense, even if there were tests and rules and records and such. The only people we would ever want to carry guns are the extreme pacifists who would NEVER initiate violence, and do everything possible first to avoid confrontation, including loss of property or backing down.
Only once violence has been initiated by the other person, and it looks like they might intend to kill (or rape, if we're going to include that), only at that point should responding with force even be an option.
At no other point, not for hub caps, not for a car, not for anything.
In the case of Aaron, I'm not decrying dogmatism, I'm decrying willful ignorance or self-delusion.
Your making it about the thing being stolen. You don't believe it's ok to kill someone over property. Guess what, I agree with you. You don't think I should initiate violence if I have a gun, but it's ok to initiate violence if I don't have a gun because the gun makes it easy to kill them? What if I have a sword? What if I just plan to beat them to death with my fists? The gun is just a tool, I hope you have as much problem with me confronting someone with a sword as with a gun.
You only think any force is appropriate if I am being killed, or raped. I don't agree.
I'm making it about the reaction the person I'm confronting has to me. I believe it is ok to confront them, even knowing that by doing so they may respond violently to me. If they do, and I think the best option is to respond with force, I will do so.
I never said I would shoot someone 100 percent of the time if they were stealing my hubcaps, I did say that it is ok to arm myself before confronting someone who is breaking the law and taking my things.
It's not about the house, the car, the hubcaps, it's about the violence they put on me when I confront them about something they should not be doing.
There is no duty to retreat.
If the situation was about home invasion or rape, I'd be willing to think he isn't utterly confused. But for a car? For hub caps? Really? Initiating violence with the willingness to cause death?
Do you not see that that makes all the difference?
My entire point about being a non-killing absolutist is that even getting people to come a little way over to my stated position of argument and logic would involve the massive reduction in loss of life.
I should not have tried to use humor at all.
replace give them a kick in the fanny and use "grab them by the shoulder and push them off my car" Or something similar that uses force, but I said it so lets stick with kick them in the fanny.
For this debate I'll continue on about hubcaps because I'm not trying to trap you with defending myself against marauders or stopping my daughters rape or some appeal to emotion.
A reasonable person wouldn't respond to me kicking them in the fanny with enough violence to justify me using deadly force. It is not unreasonable for me to expect them not to attack me. If they act out of reason and start to hurt me then I have the right to defend myself. They started the situation by stealing something.
The law allows me to use reasonable force to stop a crime happening in my presence. A swift kick in the fanny is not unreasonable. Them responding with enough force to seriously hurt me or kill me is unreasonable and justifies my use of a firearm to defend myself.
How much violence is "enough violence"? If you're holding a gun and they get up close to you, you're risking them taking the gun from you. Will you now refrain from using the gun because they might simply be lashing out, even with that risk in mind?
If I had my gun out I wouldn't approach them because I know that presents a danger that they might take it away from me.
My point isn't to try to catch you out with a specific problem, it's to get to the root of the problem.
I should have taken more time when writing earlier. I was at one time a pistol instructor. I wouldn't go to kick someone in the fanny if I already had my gun out. It presents to much or a risk.
I said I'd probably kick them in the fanny and it was meant as a light hearted joke and I should have left it out.
The original question was what would I do if I had my gun on them and they just calmly kept stealing the hubcaps. What would I do then.
If I wanted to stop them I would re holster and go kick them in the fanny. Or get my roommate to kick them in the fanny. What I would really do is probably throw a rock at them or hit them with a stick from a distance. Something that kept my distance from them.
I'm trying to articulate my root belief, I'm not backing down from the base statement that I would initiate force against them and if they responded with enough force to cause me harm I would be willing to shoot them.
I believe that it is their response with violence to me trying to stop them from committing a crime against me that justifies me using more force, up to and including deadly force with a gun. If blame lays anywhere it is in their initial illegal action that fault lies.
“Confiscation of civilian firearms
Controversy arose over a September 8 city-wide order by New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass to local police, U.S. Army National Guard soldiers, and Deputy U.S. Marshals to confiscate all civilian-held firearms. "No one will be able to be armed," Compass said. "Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns." Seizures were carried out without warrant, and in some cases with excessive force; one instance captured on film involved 58 year old New Orleans resident Patricia Konie. Konie stayed behind, in her well provisioned home, and had an old revolver for protection. A group of police entered the house, and when she refused to surrender her revolver, she was tackled and it was removed by force. Konie's shoulder was fractured, and she was taken into police custody for failing to surrender her firearm.”
.....
"After refusing to admit that it had any seized firearms, the city revealed in mid-March that it did have a cache of some 1000 firearms seized after the hurricane; this disclosure came after the NRA filed a motion in court to hold the city in contempt for failure to comply with the U.S. District Court's earlier order to return all seized firearms."
In the political aftermath of that there was a bill to make it more illegal then it already was. However considering that it was not legal to begin with, this bill does not give me the warm fuzzies about it not happening again in a disaster situation. Based on things like this happening I disagree with you that I should have more confidence in society.
A quick thought experiment for those who would like a registry. How would you feel about a registry of everyone and what constitutional rights they exercised. A database that said:
John Doe, 28, Atlanta Georgia
Pro Government forum posts: 20
Anti government forum posts: 150
Pro gun forum posts: 60
Anti gun forum posts: 0
Pro government blog posts: 1
Ant government blog posts: 8
Pro government assemblies attended: 0
Anti government assemblies attended: 7
Voting History
Republican Votes: 56
Democratic Vote: 0
Arrest history
Times arrested:0
Times refused search of vehicle: 2
Times refused search of home: 0
Etc.....
Does anyone think that there is no one in any government entity that would abuse this information? IRS would not start accidentally auditing republicans more then democrats in a democrat administration and visa versa?
How would a database like this with every right a person exercised be different than a registry of every gun owner and what they owned? Both are exercising their legal rights.
If you are okay with a Second Amendment and not a Fist and Fourth Amendment registry, what is your reasoning?
Besides, there's an argument to be made that the presence of a gun registry could in fact improve the circumstances in the aftermath of a major disaster because police would be able to use it confirm that a firearm isn't stolen or tied to criminal activity, and in alleviating those concerns confiscation could even be made less likely. Clearly there would be protocols restricting access to such a registry. Yeah, and there totally shouldn't be any records at all of any kinds of legal proceedings, because no-one wants Fifth, Sixth, Seventh or Eighth Amendment registries, do they!? A gun registry isn't even equivalent to a Second Amendment registry, because guns aren't the only thing covered by "arms".
I think it's a pretty silly comparison to make, considering that the purpose of a gun registry has nothing to do with people exercising their rights, but rather is a matter of making it much easier to crack down on straw purchasers.
If access to such a registry requires a warrant in relation to a specific person or a specific gun, can it still be effective? Isn't that a sufficient privacy protection?
Also, for clarification: what are the purposes for a gun registry? How effective would one actually be? Are there better alternatives?
I could see added to that a gun range that it is registered to.
(Sorry for spelling a mix of work and just being out of it).
Otherwise I still do not see the benefit of a registry to gun owners great enough for them to give up their privacy. If the concern is tracking stolen weapons then we create a stolen weapon database. The only other use I am seeing is for it to provide an easy way for the government to conduct fishing expeditions.