Gun Control being decimated on State level

[JuergenG]

Some heart warming legislature has been passed so far this year.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/24/The-Long-View-Gun-Control-Is-Being-Decimated-At-The-State-Level

[Gast]

There is hope...

[Senne]

Did I miss the part about the gun lobby achieving that by arguing that law-abiding hunters and sports shooters are completely harmless, or are they actually doing something completely different from what we are being told by our "lobby" organisations is the only strategy we should even think of pursuing?

[Gast]

Did I miss the part ...

Beware of Juergen´s golden shower threat!

[JuergenG]

@Senne

I hear you, but you (willingly?) suppressed the point that there are fundamental (constitutional!) differences

between the U.S. and any other country in regards to arms rights/legislation.

@gebuesch

Just don't take things I said (and mean!) out of context and stop poking as otherwise you may be

on the search for a different soapbox soon.

[Gast]

I hear you, but you (willingly?) suppressed the point that there are fundamental (constitutional!) differences

between the U.S. and any other country in regards to arms rights/legislation.

A constitution or in this case a list of amendments to a constitution is just a piece of paper. It does not grant or take away any rights that humans have. This piece of paper just annouces how much the state wants to interfere with and fight against those rights. As long as people do not understand this they will be always trapped between rights that exist because the people exist as individual human beings and some text on a piece of paper not even written or discussed by themselves - not mentioning that none of them ever voluntarily agreed.

[Senne]

@Senne

I hear you, but you (willingly?) suppressed the point that there are fundamental (constitutional!) differences

between the U.S. and any other country in regards to arms rights/legislation.

That is exactly the problem. People imagine that their rights depend on what's written on a piece of paper or what piece of soil they are standing on/were born on.

I'm not even going into the discussion that the declaration of independence states that all men (not "all men born on american soil") are created equal and have inalienable rights. As we all know, even the founding fathers didn't really think that one through by excluding women or people with the "wrong" skin color. But today we all know that it would be a huge injustice to deny people certain rights because their epidermis is black, regardless of what's written on some piece of paper.

The attitude of those that I call "freedom porn consumers" is analogous to a situation where they live in a country where black people are discriminated against by law, and all they do is admire some other country where this is not the case without ever daring to change things on their own piece of dirt because "there are fundamental (constitutional!) differences". Well, if that's the case, doesn't that make it even more necessary to stand up and say that those "constitutional differences" that mean that people are denied fundamental human rights are unjust and need to be overcome? If "your" constitution said that black people are subhumans and may be anslaved, would you just shrug and say "Too bad, it's on paper, nothing we can do about it" and look at some "heart warming" examples of the lack of this injustice from other countries? Shouldn't you rather feel compelled to point out that "your" constitution obviously falls short of respecting fundamental human rights and that this needs to change, right now?

The problem is not what's written on some peice of paper, the problem is what ist in peoples minds. If you think that your enslavement is just because it is supported by a piece of paper, you'll alway be a slave, and the occasional piece of freedom porn will only serve to keep you calm rather than fuel your appetite for freedom.

[EJER Fuchs]

"Did I miss the part about the gun lobby achieving that by arguing that law-abiding hunters and sports shooters are completely harmless, or are they actually doing something completely different from what we are being told by our "lobby" organisations is the only strategy we should even think of pursuing?"

NO; you deliberately ignored the fundamental structural and cultural difference between the US and most of Europe and the other former English colonies. Canada, Australia, etc. have aped no-longer-Great Britain in eschewing individualism and fundamental precepts of citizens as autonomous to adopt socialism and the nanny-state mentality.

Europe, of course, NEVER had a truly armed citizenry; the privileged classes controlled access to arms for hundreds of years; first, to protect knights in armor, then to protect their vast hunting preserves from poachers. Keeping peasants poorly armed was a matter of actual and economic survival.

In the US, the country was created by people who used firearms daily as a matter of fundamental survival; to get food, to keep from becoming food, and to protect their homesteads from the original owners. Firearms ownership by all is inherent in our history.

Therefore, German gun owners do not have the cultural and legal bulwarks Americans do, and have to appease the hoplophobes with assurances of safety and submission.

Don't blame your lobbies for using not using inapplicable tactics.

[Gast]

But there is no difference in the rights of the human beings involved. Rights do not depend on an old piece of paper!

And everyone knows to what appeasement leads. Just ask the Czechs. The so-called "gun lobby" in Germany is as trustworthy for real gun owners, who believe in rights, as Chamberlain was for the Czechs.

[EJER Fuchs]

The rights you have are the rights you can get those in power to both acknowledge and respect. That is a problem everywhere, even in the U.S.

Do the majority - or even a significant minority - of GERMANS believe they have a fundamental, INDIVIDUAL right to be armed for defense of self and family?

If not, you have identified the fundamental problem.

[Senne]

The rights you have are the rights you can get those in power to both acknowledge and respect.

So the Indians in North America didn't have the right to life and property? The slaves didn't have the right to be free? The jews in Nazi Germany didn't have any rights at all?

Do you really fail to realize the difference between saying that someone doesn't have a right so something and saying that his right to something is being violated by people in a position of power?

Do the majority - or even a significant minority - of GERMANS believe they have a fundamental, INDIVIDUAL right to be armed for defense of self and family?

If not, you have identified the fundamental problem.

So you think the right strategy to do something about that fundamental problem would be to say "Unfortunately we Germans don't have the right to be armed or defend ourselves because those in power don't acknowledge or respect those rights. Too bad, let's have some more of that freedom porn while we do nothing to change that."?

[Boule]

Do the majority - or even a significant minority - of GERMANS believe they have a fundamental, INDIVIDUAL right to be armed for defense of self and family?

If not, you have identified the fundamental problem.

Again, you are asking the wrong question. Why should someone else decide, what MY RIGHT should be? If the majority of the Germans, unlike in ancient times (see the Tacitus quote in my signature) decides not to exercise this right, it does not simply go away. The goverment might force me (by threatining arrest and prison time) to not excercise this right at the moment, but that is just an "argumentum ad baculum" and still does not make the right go away.

If you want a right codified in some form of law, you need to convince the people around you. Still, do you really think that the whole "we need guns for sporting and hunting purposes" talk is the right way to approach the fundamental problem that you just so clearly identified? Asking for privilleges instead of demanding our rights?

[Gast]

The rights you have are the rights you can get those in power to both acknowledge and respect.

Well, sounds like you think that it was ok to punish slaves who tried to escape from slavery in the South because those in power did not grant them their rights.

I guess back in the days people like you were the allies of the Redcoats when other people wrote down those words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

[EJER Fuchs]

"So the Indians in North America didn't have the right to life and property? The slaves didn't have the right to be free? The jews in Nazi Germany didn't have any rights at all?

"Well, sounds like you think that it was ok to punish slaves who tried to escape from slavery in the South because those in power did not grant them their rights."

What fatuous, if not deliberate, drivel.

Not only did I say so such thing; I never intimated anything close to is.

The native Americans could not enforce their rights and were, therefore, exterminated or forcibly relocated and indoctrinated. Why? Because they lacked sufficient numbers and weapons to protect their rights when force was used against them. Their rights were effectively stripped from them, and it took almost three-quarters of a century before they could start recovering them.

Slaves were obtained and kept by force, fear and ignorance. How? They lacked the organization, communication and weapons to stage a successful revolt. When there were revolts (Google "Nat Turner"), they were brutally suppressed, with even more punitive laws enacted afterwoards. That is how the slaves were kept divested of their rights. It took a century, and a sea-change in national attitudes as the result of well-orchestrated protests, before the promise of Reconstruction was really achieved.

The Jews? Please. The German government systematically stripped them of their rights, their property, their existence, and tried damned hard to eradicate their entire race and culture.

Through LAWS.

Their fellow German citizens aided and abetted in the process, and perpetrated the pograms across most of Europe thereafter. THAT is how the Jews lost their rights, as you damned well know.

Call and raise.

[Senne]

So do you agree that people on the piece of dirt called "Germany" have the same inalienable rights as those born on the piece of dirt called "America" but are stripped of some of them (in particular the right to own firearms) by force?

[Boule]

Europe, of course, NEVER had a truly armed citizenry; the privileged classes controlled access to arms for hundreds of years....

Please don't let the Swiss ever hear that or they might strongly and violently disagree, same as for revolutionary France with the militia. Germans demanded a "Volksbewaffnung" during the revolution of 1848 and the German Empire did not have a gun law or even gun licensing (with local exceptions prohibiting shooting within city boundaries) and having a handgun was considered proper etiquette in most circles.

So please stop spreading your propaganda and start researching!

[EJER Fuchs]

Dead on about the Swiss - how could I forget them? The French? Be serious. France's most potent military force is the FFL - composed, by definition, of foreigners.

The revolutions of 1848 DID send warning shots - literally - across the brows of certain crowned heads, Prussia (there was no Germany yet) included. However, the 20th century brought curbs on 19th century liberties. And "game laws" restricting arms were centuries old then.

" So do you agree that people on the piece of dirt called "Germany" have the same inalienable rights as those born on the piece of dirt called "America" but are stripped of some of them (in particular the right to own firearms) by force? "

People ANYWHERE have rights inherent in their personhood. And people have their rights stripped from them - or have surrendered them - in many places, by force and/or necessity of mere survival. Those on the brink of starvation will accede to whatever fills their belly - or, more importantly, their children's.