Ireland bans handguns

[Mechaman]

In regards to Ireland headed towards a neofacistic state.

As of this moment I would like to disown my Irish heritage once and forever. From now on St. Patrick's Day will be known as "Statist Douchebag Day".

[Mechaman]

In regards to Ireland headed towards a neofacistic state.

As of this moment I would like to disown my Irish heritage once and forever. From now on St. Patrick's Day will be known as "Statist Douchebag Day".

lolz, really?

Yes really.
If there is anything that pisses me off more than moralf****try it's statef****try. People aren't cattle whose only purpose is to eternally serve the evil collectivist state.

[Mechaman]

In regards to Ireland headed towards a neofacistic state.

As of this moment I would like to disown my Irish heritage once and forever. From now on St. Patrick's Day will be known as "Statist Douchebag Day".

lolz, really?

Yes really.
If there is anything that pisses me off more than moralf****try it's statef****try. People aren't cattle whose only purpose is to eternally serve the evil collectivist state.

Nice threadjack.

Let's return to the subject of the thread.

Threadjack?
I think Ireland taking guns away from their populace and not even allowing them to have toy guns relates pretty well with statism. If they had done it "to reduce crime" or whatever I would just say "bad move". However, the sole purpose of what they did was to prevent the development of "a gun culture" which IMO is nothing but statist. When the government of any nation thinks people shouldn't have the right to defend their own lives that nation no longer cares about individual rights, it only cares about the self preservation of the state.

[Mechaman]

Good job.

Actually we're at an epoch in which if a state wanna control its population they have far more means than fire weapons, this is old fashioned, US should wake up about it. Or it should be more logical, all the weapons that are in the army should be authorized in the population in order to defend themselves against the state. Eh, that would be cool in TV games, instead of a car you could be THE LUCKY WINNER OF THAT WONDERFUUUL TAAANNNK! No, actually today there are other means to control a population and/or to impose a regime, this is really old fashioned. No matter if a population has weapons or not, the coming and the imposition of a fascist state is always possible, it depends of other criteria.

Banning guns on the other hand contributes to make a less violent society.

I agree with your premise that there are more ways to control a society than by banning guns. George W. Bush proved that with the Patriot Act and other fearmongering measures in the past 8 years. However, the idea that by making a law banning guns that some magic fairy will come out of the sky and instantly BOOM, all guns disappear is fucking ridiculous. This is why gun control is failing big time in the US, because not many people subscribe to the idea that if a gun ban were put into place that suddenly criminals would obey the law and hand in their weapons! In fact, such a law would only create a black market flooding with guns, just like what happened with Prohibition and what is happening right now with the War on Drugs. The result? A skyrocketing crime rate due to criminals taking advantage of the law abiding sheeple who decided it was better to be obey the law than have the means to protect themselves and their family, and those who decided to disobey the law and keep their guns or have to resort to buying from this black market would be treated like criminals. Would you really want that?
Before you even begin on who successful gun control works in Europe, let me add that many European nations aren't nearly as guncentric as the US is. There are way too many guns in circulation in the US for any remotely realisitc gun ban to work effectively. Also, tell me why in Switzerland, where every adult male is armed with a friggin assault rifle, the firearm crime rate is the around the same as Germany where they supposedly got rid of guns? This may not prove that armed societys are safer, but it doesn't prove that disarmed ones are safer still. But still, how do you explain this anomaly? Why is Switzerland safer than Great Britain when it comes to crime despite the fact that a large number of people there have friggin assault rifles while in Great Britain it's illegal to own a firearm?

I think Benjamin Franklin put it best:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Security, deserve neither LIBERTY nor SECURITY."

[Mechaman]

My honest opinion, instead of using excuses of "well the state already uses political correctness, warrantless spying, military drafts, suspensions of habeus corpus, why don't we just go ahead and get rid of guns?" We should be using this "let's restore all civil liberties to the people: the right to privacy, the right to free speech, the right to not join the army, the right to bear arms, instead of subcombing to the slippery slope of statism?"

[Mechaman]

Good job.

Actually we're at an epoch in which if a state wanna control its population they have far more means than fire weapons, this is old fashioned, US should wake up about it. Or it should be more logical, all the weapons that are in the army should be authorized in the population in order to defend themselves against the state. Eh, that would be cool in TV games, instead of a car you could be THE LUCKY WINNER OF THAT WONDERFUUUL TAAANNNK! No, actually today there are other means to control a population and/or to impose a regime, this is really old fashioned. No matter if a population has weapons or not, the coming and the imposition of a fascist state is always possible, it depends of other criteria.

Banning guns on the other hand contributes to make a less violent society.

I agree with your premise that there are more ways to control a society than by banning guns. George W. Bush proved that with the Patriot Act and other fearmongering measures in the past 8 years. However, the idea that by making a law banning guns that some magic fairy will come out of the sky and instantly BOOM, all guns disappear is fucking ridiculous. This is why gun control is failing big time in the US, because not many people subscribe to the idea that if a gun ban were put into place that suddenly criminals would obey the law and hand in their weapons! In fact, such a law would only create a black market flooding with guns, just like what happened with Prohibition and what is happening right now with the War on Drugs. The result? A skyrocketing crime rate due to criminals taking advantage of the law abiding sheeple who decided it was better to be obey the law than have the means to protect themselves and their family, and those who decided to disobey the law and keep their guns or have to resort to buying from this black market would be treated like criminals. Would you really want that?
Before you even begin on who successful gun control works in Europe, let me add that many European nations aren't nearly as guncentric as the US is. There are way too many guns in circulation in the US for any remotely realisitc gun ban to work effectively. Also, tell me why in Switzerland, where every adult male is armed with a friggin assault rifle, the firearm crime rate is the around the same as Germany where they supposedly got rid of guns? This may not prove that armed societys are safer, but it doesn't prove that disarmed ones are safer still. But still, how do you explain this anomaly? Why is Switzerland safer than Great Britain when it comes to crime despite the fact that a large number of people there have friggin assault rifles while in Great Britain it's illegal to own a firearm?

I think Benjamin Franklin put it best:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Security, deserve neither LIBERTY nor SECURITY."

Well, like most of people who defend this issue, your arguments are prepared. Ok, you acknowledge that today guns don't matter a lot concerning the possibility of a state to take the control of its population. That's a good point.

Then criminality, violence. Well, you, like a lot of people who defend it, talk about Switzerland. Good point that you have been precise, you cited the fact the weapons every adult males have are some weapons from the army, an assault rifle, so more or less a war weapon I guess, when the average persons have such weapons they may hesitate more to take it with them and use it than if they have that cool and easy handgun.

Anyways, yes, the law on weapons in general, not only this riffle, is more flexible in Switzerland than in other countries of Europe, and, according to you, and I give you my trust for this, criminal rates are less important than in these other European countries. OK. Now, there may be other criteria to analyze. Yes? No? Maybe the fact that Switzerland is a more prosperous, more ethnically homogeneous - let's be clear here I don't mean that there is an ethnic predisposition to weapons and violence, it's just that ethnic minorities use to be discriminated and thus when there is some it creates more tensions in a society, let's continue to be clear, I don't mean here there shouldn't be or there should be less ethnic minorities in a country, at all, I'm just noticing some kinds of "mechanisms" - and a more socially homogeneous country could tend to explain also such things. Oppositely to UK, France, or Germany. To give you a caricature to make this point, you give all the weapons you want to people in Beverly Hills, they may not enjoy themselves by using it... (though, ok, the more you get money the more you have possibilities to being nut, but that's an other debate...)

Anyways again. Seems that Switzerland is not especially enjoying this wonderful status anymore, according to surveys I just watched to on the web, the trend is more and more to the banning. The most recent I've found told that in January 2008 51% of Swiss were favorable to a better control of weapons. Also, still on surveys, some organizations made some showing that the rate of suicide by fire weapon was higher in Switzerland than in other European countries. And in the same time, several other surveys shew that the more you ban easy way to suicide yourself, the more suicide rates decrease. For example a survey shew more precisely that since a better control of fire arms in Austria in 1997 the rates of suicide by fire weapons have decrease, and the rate of suicide by other means haven't increase. All I found was in French, if ever you want links tell me.

Anyways finally. We fall agree that a state doesn't need to ban firearms to control a population, some laws passed by that fake cow-boy that was Bush was effectively a wonderful example of this, and in your second post you seem to be more interested in the principle of freedom overall, but here we're talking about tools of easy and heavy violence, the more you ban them, the more you ban the possibility of expression of easy and heavy violence within a society. When you ban it, less people have it, so less people are afraid of being attacked with, and it's virtuous circle, they are less afraid so they are less tempted to have one, etc. And this contributes to a less violent society. Violence, especially by gun is being made sexy, but actually, it kills.

Then, you tell me about the fact that it would be too hard to set it up in the US because of the current situation. The only thing I can answer is: either you renounce to a principle because it would be too hard, or you keep the principle and try to do the dirty job.

And, to finish, some quotes are really seductive, especially if more of that they come from great people but it doesn't necessarily makes of them some theorems...

That seems to be a more solid reasoning than just "OMG libertarians are so braindead!" that I hear all the time from guys like Xahar.

[Mechaman]

Good news. The ''right'' to bear arms is one of the biggest aberrations of the world. The right to kill people, too? Don't say than you use them for hunting, nobody hunts with an handgun.

The moment the police and military give up their weapons is when I'll give up mine. If that doesn't happen, I'll wait till the abolishment of the State, the Institute of slavery, genocide, and corruption, before I do.

[Mechaman]

Also I do find gun nuts and NRA types annoying. However I hate Ireland more.

Ditto.
The reason why I'm so viruently pro-gun isn't because I actually like guns, but because I don't put blind faith in the State, an institution that proves time and time again how corrupt it really is, to have the sole right to ownership of the means of self defense.

[Mechaman]

I disagree with this bill and its intentions but if what Gully said is true I do not understand the fuss libertarians are raising over this. Yes the bill is digustingly statist(god I hate using that word) but what do you expect from a government in a country that is failing?

Good point. I forget how much fail Ireland is.

[Mechaman]

6. BRTD and Mechman can now resume their mutual masturbation...

Four hands are better than two!

[Mechaman]

Makes me think of the remark of a US politician after what happened in Virginia Tech, maybe it was Bush but not sure: teachers should have a weapon in class to defend themselves.

Ok, now why in Europe, in countries more or less demographically and socially similar to US, like France, UK, or Germany, people don't have that claim? Why in the same time the criminal rates are higher in US than in these countries in which people can't have that wonderful defense that is a firearm? What is that?

Take your pick as to the underlying cause of crime in the U.S. (drugs, socio-economic, etc), but it's not the ownership of guns by law abiding citizens.

Oh and skip the OMGZ WE NEED TO GET RID OF GUNZ CAUZ OF MADMEN1111!  That rallying cry is old an boring.  If you want to go down that road, ask the families on the Long Island Railroad massacre if they wish their loved ones were allowed to carry?  That guy would have got one shot off in Texas, that's why he went to Long Island.  He knew no on e would shoot back.

And even if gun control does work, crime rates go down and people are safer, would it really be worth all the liberties and freedoms sacrificed to get there? Do you know what they call a state with no crime? A police state, just look at Soviet Russia where there was a nonexistant crime rate yet civil liberties were virually nonexistant. Once people start believing civil liberties should be sacrificed to produce a safer society, they go down the slippery slope into statism. One day it could be gun control, the next day it could be "speech control", the day after that it could be "thought control", the day after that it could be "sleep control" until one day it is "total control".
But let me guess, a lot of people don't believe things are worth dying for anymore. That liberty and freedom are words spoken of by generations long past, that security should be the only thing that matters no matter how many sacred human rights are violated, no matter how many otherwise innocent people are arrested. Thanks to these people, the world of 1984 described by George Orwell is becoming more and more reality with each passing day.

[Mechaman]

You've obviously never read 1984.

(facepalm)
Moron Good sir, I spent a whole friggin summer having to read that book, annotate a gazillion passages from it, write a 6 page essay over it, and come up with 50 questions on it. Don't friggin tell me I didn't read it.
The society described in 1984 is one based off of control that thrives off of fearmongering and hatemongering among the people. Somebody shows up on everyone's tv at a certain time to make sure they exercise, there are cameras everywhere. There are even the thought police. And somehow 2+2=5. How do you not see cameras at stoplights and street corners as not 1984? How about fines on housewives for being too loud during sex? http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25379575-663,00.html
Doesn't that remind you a little bit of the Anti-Sex League described in the book?

[Mechaman]

(facepalm)
Moron,

Classy.

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Yes, you might well have read it, but it's quite clear that you didn't read it.

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Is it?

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Because I'm not a paranoid fool.

I want to say that I'm sorry about the moron comment, it was a gut reaction to being called a liar.
Second, how the hell are we really supposed to know George Orwell's intent with 1984? As for fearmongering and hatemongering, what do you call the Minute of Hate (or however long it is)? How does that not qualify as hatemongering?
Thirdly, it's a shame that we're reduced to throwing around insults on this one issue. Let's man up and let bygones be bygones. I'm sorry for calling you a moron, you're sorry for saying I didn't read 1984 when I spent a ridiculous amount of my free time just to do an assignment over it.
Truce?

[Mechaman]

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Wow how mature of you!

It's clear that this issue brings out the worst in people so I'm going to stop and shut up because it seems like the more I try to plea my case the more hostile people become. For the sake of forum civility, I'll stop trying to change the mind of people who are already set in their ways.

Such a shame though, because in a few days I might be agreeing with these people over an issue.

[Mechaman]

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Wow how mature of you!

It's clear that this issue brings out the worst in people so I'm going to stop and shut up because it seems like the more I try to plea my case the more hostile people become. For the sake of forum civility, I'll stop trying to change the mind of people who apparently don't give a damn about civil liberties.

Such a shame though, because in a few days I might be agreeing with these people over an issue.

Thanks for ignoring all my other points.

And that was only way of expressing how dumb that post was. I expect such ignorance from BRTD but others...

FOr what it's worth Ghyl, I forgive you.
I see this issue now as that of completely different perspectives. I can't blame you for thinking the way you do because like you said almost everybody you know doesn't care about this particular issue. Knowing that now I know why support for these kinds of issues is so high, whether I like it or not. I just think it's sad how emotional we all got over this particular issue.
Yes I did read your other posts, and I can understand how you would reach those conclusions though I may disagree with them.
Anyway, sorry about my part in this huge bitchfest.