h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'll ignore the pun.
Actually, I was pointing out that due to the inaccuracy of the stats,
with regard to the US, the figures might be a bit higher.

Statistics are notoriously undependable. They are usually gathered to prove a point. Unfortunately, people are not statistics. They don't hold still in one place and do one thing.

You mean this?

"Last year in England, where guns are illegal, there were 14 deaths from hand guns. In America, where I think you know how we feel about guns: 23,000 deaths. But there is absolutely no relation between having a gun, and shooting someone with it; and NOT having a gun and NOT shooting someone. And you'd be a fool and a communist to think otherwise."

He also, among many sick and disgusting comments, did a bit about using terminally ill patients for stuntmen in movies, and heightening the thrill of violent movies by having them actually killed...

I understand the social and artistic value of "sick" comics.
I have been known to pay attention to Lenny Bruce and Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kinison and George Carlin, among others.

I also understand the concept of "reductio ad absurdem", which all of those gentlemen have been known to use. Ridicule by exaggeration.

Social commentary can be useful. Satire doubly so.

So, following the reductio ad absurdem method, I ask rhetorically,"When you allow your government to tell you what you can't own, how long it is it before they tell you what you can't do, or say?"
Once you pass a law and outlaw something, you don't have to think about it anymore. It's just plain bad. It's over. Nobody can do that anymore. No one. (Except the government.)

Now, if the Government can do what it wants and you have to do what it says... then that means if you want to do what you want, you have to join the government... But wait! Only a few people in the government can do what they want... So, try to be one of those... or give up... it can't be done, except by those people, those few...

Firearms aren't ever banned because it is a good idea whose time has come. They are always banned by people who are out of ideas completely, who have settled on this last ditch feeble effort to prove that the law means something...anything...and to get re-elected.
The problem is that the law is not an incantation and the legislators are not wizards. The speaking of the correct words does not make the problem or the situation go away.
Sometimes it makes it worse.
And when you have a population that has been shepherded into a mindset that makes "1984" look like a holiday camp, when the Great Oz has spoken they believe that a miracle has occurred. The situation that spurred the legislation will never occur again. Those people did not die in vain! No more need ever die again!

Sorry, folks. It don't work that way.
Those people sell you laws the same way Coke sells you sugared ditch water. You don't like the taste? Try new Legistlation Lite! All the substance with half the relevancy!

Laws don't stop people from dying.
They die anyway. They find new ways to die.
Laws don't keep people from killing.
They kill anyway. They find new ways to kill.
And in many countries, if you kill and the law says you shouldna done that, then you get to live out the rest of your natural life, 'cause the law says you can't kill a killer.

"Modern thought" says that laws that kill the killer are bad and countries that have those laws are bad.
"Modern thought" says the basic dignity of all human life should be respected...by everyone, governments included...
"Modern thought" says that if the entire world could learn to live under one "rule of law", with everyone being punished equally for violating the law, and one body administering the law, then there would be no need for death or war and everybody could just settle down and do what they were told by one government...that can essentially do what ever it pleases...and anyone who doesn't like it can just sit there and lump it, because unauthorized dissent is not correct.

No, it is not firearms that bother me. I don't lose much sleep over them.
It is prisons that bother me. I do lose sleep over them.
Prison populations are growing. Some criminals get early releases and some eventually return, having committed subsequent or worse crimes than the ones they were put away for in the first place.
It is the prospect of a country becoming or remaining one big prison that truly bothers me. When the wardens are in the capital and the trusties are the local officials.
You have to look very closely at what you give up to your government, because eventually you will have given up so much that they can take whatever they want.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!

I have to ask this, tr, don't you believe in any laws?

I obey the ones I am aware of.
I didn't drink until legal age.
I don't drink and drive.
I don't associate with people who use drugs.
I wear my seatbelt.
I've only had one speeding ticket in my life.
I make sure my vehicle is insured and inspected and registered.

It is as a law-abiding person that I know that all it takes is a law that I don't agree with to make me a criminal... To those who don't care, it doesn't matter...


If given the choice and the ability, there are many laws I would strike from the books. It is possible for a law to be a crime.

Certainly, but it appears you are aware that they can be useful, we'll just have to agree to disagree about which are useful and which constitutes government abuse of power.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/americas/2369815.stm

M'lud. The prosecution rests...

Ah, but my point exactly...sitting ducks.
The law does not protect, it punishes.
It will not get an opportunity to punish that fellow.

That article does leave out some important points. My local newspaper reported that the shooter applied for a concealed-weapons permit about a year ago. I do not recall whether it said he had actually received one.
It seems to me that this was quite premeditated, (by more than a year?) No amount of legislation or law enforcement, short of a total police state, would have prevented this from happening.

Cheerio!

Apart from making guns almost impossible to get of course...

How?

You cannot wish or legislate something out of existence.

They tried it with birth control, James Joyce, and alcohol.

Mankind's ingenuity overcomes mankind's wish for order.

Good answer. By that logic doctors and scientists should stop trying to find cures for disease as there will always be disease, so why bother?

You can't stop crime completely so why bother trying at all?

Humans are just animals anyway, so why bother trying to improve ourselves? Lets just rob and maim and kill at will. That's real freedom.

You see, I reckon you're standing against evolution. 200 years ago guns among the general populus were needed (for protection against animals, against criminals as there was no effective law enforcement and to run the indiginous peoples off their land for example.) Now they're not because society has evolved. People just cling to pointless bits of legislation because, lets face it, guns are a tool of power. They make people feel big and clever and powerful.

You see, the problem with a written constitution is that once it's written down, it's very difficult to change it. Meanwhile in hicksville USA kids are being killed on a weekly basis because it's ok to use a weapon to demonstrate that you're not important not impotent.

Tell me again that guns don't kill people, people kill people. I love that kind of hackneyed cliche. And be careful TR. The NRA and the FBI are probably watching us right now.

"Now they're not because society has evolved"

Eh? You should come to some parts of Glasgow and then try telling me that, pal.

"There are no atheists in foxholes."

"I lost my religion during the war."

This is a dichotomy.

Military elites the world over are studying 'oriental' martial arts like never before.

The Boxer Rebellion was driven forward by Chinese martial artists who believed that their chi (and this is just the version that I heard) would protect them from the white bullets. They lost.

This is a dichotomy.

Millions of automobiles are on the road every day. Untold numbers of accidents and incidents occur with automobiles. Many die from these accidents and incidents. There is no movement to ban the automobile as evil and dangerous and evidence of man's need to prove himself big and bad and able to probe the limits of free will with the press of an accelerator pedal.

Millions of firearms are within easy reach every day. Untold numbers of accidents and incidents do not occur. Many people live near or with these firearms without accident or incident. There is a movement to ban the firearm as evil and dangerous and evidence of man's need to prove himself big and bad and able to probe the limits of free will with the press of a trigger.

This is a dichotomy.

It is a matter of philosophy, not morality, when one chooses one object over another as the most dangerous thing on earth.

According to a recent WHO report, millions die every year from unclean water.

My twelve-year-old did a report in her science class last month on the Cholera epidemic in London (I forget the date) that was traced to a single contaminated water source, a public hand pump. They (according to the popular version of the story) solved the problem by simply removing the handle.
Oh, joy! No more epidemic!

Of course, you and I know that it probably was not that simple.
New sources of supply had to be found and the consumers probably had to pay for them.
The care of the affected poor probably was still as meager and as cheap as the government and the church could get by with, so while the source of the cholera was removed, the suffering continued until the last one had died or gotten slightly better.

Nothing has changed. People still die from cholera and the history of medicine and 'one pump handle' means little to them if they are born dying. Water can kill.

Water can heal.

This is a dichotomy.

Having lived in the US all my life, I have found many things almost unbearable to think about it, for they are in my face constantly.
But among all the nasty and stupid things, the one thing I cannot truly fathom or deal with in any useful fashion, the one thing that tom-toms like a sore tooth in my mind is the unremitting fashion for believing that what is right in front of you can be ignored.

"Don't look and you won't see it."

"You're always looking for something to criticize."

"If you think there's a problem, then you're the problem."

"If nobody cares, why should you?"

"Don't worry about what you cannot change."

"It's always been that way."

"It's a cultural thing."

"Nobody else is complaining."

They like conspiracy theories and scandals and home remedies.
They like fads, fashions and trends.
They think nostalgia for things they once were tired of is cool.
They wear shoes that are bad for them, eat food a dog wouldn't touch, listen to music so loud that their grandchildren are born hearing impaired, and go to churches surrounded by parking lots to apologize to god for messing up and to thank him for blessing them with the right to live as they choose...

...and firearms are part of the minutiae of this pervasive coolture's life.
These people kill themselves and their children with off-road vehicles, modern appliances improperly installed, rebuilding their tornado-shattered homes on the same foundation, food-poisoning, chemical fumes, carpet deodorants, auto exhaust, using kerosene space heaters in an enclosed space, cooking fires, poorly designed bathrooms, badly designed street intersections and highway access roads, improperly administered medication, and numerous other forms of stupidity, compliance and stubbornness.
Out of all the ways that this morass of independant yet cloistered humanity find to maim and despatch themselves, I would say that by comparison with the other opportunities, a bullet is about as close to elegant as they have ever gotten. And, given the example of some of my own family members who have spent their lives peeing in the gene pool back in Southern Illinois, as about as close to civilization as they are ever going to get.

The FBI and the NRA are tiny and powerless in the face of millions who do pretty much as they please.

Signed,
a speck on an aerial photo

I hate to be contrarian (now that's a laugh!) and this is kind of off-topic, but there has been somewhat of a movement to limit automobiles. No it's not because they're "evil and dangerous and evidence of man's need to prove himself big and bad and able to probe the limits of free will with the press of an accelerator pedal." It has more to do with them being a symbol of crass consumerism, American imperialism, and their disregard for the environment. In essence, the argument is "limit the automobiles, because they are a symbol of American pride and arrogance." But then isn't that what guns are?
Specifically, SUV's are being targeted.

Cheerio!

I feel compelled to mention Switzerland and Tibet. Switzerland in th 40s and tibet in the 80s, were small, neutral countries next door to powerful, expansionistic totalitarian regimes. Switzerland has(and had) a law requiring all citizens to have military training and keep a gun in the house. Tibet advocated pacifism and was virtually unarmed. Guess who got invaded?

As compelling as that is, it turns out that it is not that simple.
I would have to do a little more research on Tibet to be even ignorant on the subject, but the neutrality of Switzerland has turned out to be a myth. Many folks have this curious habit of not blowing up the bank where they do business.

If all the rhetoric wasted on gun control were spread around the world, the land would become so fertile that there would be no hunger.

Sorry to weigh in so late in a probably dead conversation, but it seems like fun.

I am particularly amused by the argument to murder gun owners and take their guns on the basis that guns are automatically evil and violent. I wish to bow to you deities who are in a position to judge which violence is the more evil.

I also like the argument that at least one bullet has gone through any given gun, implying that someone was hurt by that bullet.

I am a native Texan, a son of the Republic of Texas, meaning that my family was there for the Revolution. My Grandfather was a true, honest-to-Murgatroid range-ridin' cowboy. One of the family relics is his Colt 45 cal handgun. I know this 100+ year history, and can swear on a stack of bibles that it has never been shot at anyone.

The only living creature it ever dismissed was an aged Banty rooster. Grandmother told him to kill it for dinner, and well... Balistics dictate that the results weren't edible. The gun passed from his hand to my father's, from my father to mine. In all these years it has never harmed anyone, I would appreciate it if I were not killed just so this relic can be melted down into "something useful".

I am not just ranting, honestly, I am not even upset. I just want to demonstrate that there is no inherant evil in any object, that posession of a handgun does not equal murder with that gun, and that gun control is a wide and varied topic determined by a wide range of factors. What is right for the UK, may not be for the US and vise versa. It must be decided on an individual basis. As for me, I agree with the federal waiting period, I agree with the ban on assult rifles, but I keep and maintain not only my Grandfather's gun, but more modern weapons as well. I also practice gun safety, and am trained in its leathal use. And I don't think that the fact I would be willing to kill to protect my home and family makes me any less of a human.

MattP

"I feel compelled to mention Switzerland and Tibet. Switzerland in th 40s and tibet in the 80s, were small, neutral countries next door to powerful, expansionistic totalitarian regimes. Switzerland has(and had) a law requiring all citizens to have military training and keep a gun in the house. Tibet advocated pacifism and was virtually unarmed. Guess who got invaded?"

Sorry to be pedantic but Tibet was invaded in 1949 by the Chinese Red Army, not the 1980s.

But the rest of your point stands.