So, shouldn't it be up to gun proponents to provide evidence that there should be free ownership and concealed carry, and not the other way around?
Gun Control is ridiculous
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So, shouldn't it be up to gun proponents to provide evidence that there should be free ownership and concealed carry, and not the other way around?
Jaggy Bunnet
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The default position will vary between countries. In the UK it is for heavy restrictions, in the US it isn't.
Whoever is looking to make the change is going to need to convince people to move from the default. I think that will require a level of evidence that will not be possible to obtain in either case.
Lothian
should be banned
Reductio ad absurdum. If absolutly everyone was armed it would be more dangerous than if no one was.
Jaggy Bunnet
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However neither of these positions is actually realistic - many people would not carry guns even if allowed and clearly many people are willing to carry guns even when they are banned. I fail to see how unreal situations give rise to real answers.
No because we are not starting with a blank sheet of paper - the USA default position is gun control but quite widely available personal firearm ownership.
ETA: See Jaggy Bunnet post - should have read the thread before posting.
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I disagree - on just a personal level I was convinced by discussions here many years ago that my views on gun control were very wrong and therefore changed my stance. Secondly there have been apparently major shifts of public opinion over the years on many subjects (both UK & USA) that indicates that such apparently large swings in attitude do actually happen no matter how unlikely prior to the change people thought such a change would be.
Jaggy Bunnet
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I am not saying that public opinion will not change, but that if it does the change is likely to be driven by emotion rather than the provision of evidence that a particular change will deliver the promised result.
Lothian
should be banned
Fine but you asked why one position should be more extraordinary. I would say that the ideal of no guns is better and even though the ideal can never be reached it does suggest that as you move towards the idealised limits it is more extraordinary that the more dangerous option is better.
All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Which is simpler having no guns or giving everyone guns.
Ah right - sorry I misunderstood your comments.
I disagree. The default position is independent of whatever gun laws there are in various countries today. We are not born with guns, society hasn't always had guns. The default position has to be "no guns at all".
Let's say tobacco is unknown. Nobody has heard of it, the plant doesn't exist. Until today: Somebody just genetically engineered the tobacco plant. Now, we get cigars, cigarettes, tobacco for pipes, the lot. There are benefits, but also bad things about it.
If I were to advocate that tobacco is overall beneficial to society - or at least as beneficial as a society without tobacco, the onus would be on me to provide the evidence and arguments. I have to show that society as a whole becomes a better place with tobacco than without tobacco.
The same goes for guns. We don't start out with guns. If you want to argue that a society as a whole is a better place with guns than without, then you have to provide the evidence.
If we have a situation of "X is not here" and "X is now here", the default position must be "X is not here", especially if X is man-made. We are not talking about whether oxygen is beneficial or not, we are talking about an invention.
Jaggy Bunnet
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We don't, we have a situation of different levels of X in different countries. That is the starting point whether you like it or not.
Lonewulf
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That's exactly what I've been saying. I'm not trying to change UK law. You guys can ban guns all you want. In fact, I wouldn't mind living in the UK even with those restrictions; I am still confident in my martial arts abilities to at the least put up a decent fight, and most cases of conflict there involve non-gun violence. However, until gun opponents see all gun proponents as red-necked, bad Sylvester Stallone impersonators, I don't think that it's possible to really come to a head in any kind of a debate.
Plenty. Such as a man walking into a church, slashing at everyone with a sword while naked, proclaiming that the angels talked to him or something (I don't know, I don't remember every paranoid delusion). However, gun shooting sprees tend to be televised the most, and you claim that "several killing sprees have taken place in the US and elsewhere" -- but "several" is a pretty iffy number, isn't it? I mean, in Rwanda, many of those killed had their heads chopped off with a machete. So if we take 50,000 people (1 million died in Rwanda, so it's a small estimate comparatively) that died thanks to a widespread killing spree with a machete, than 10 killing sprees with a firearm that ended up killing 5 people each (or 50 overall victims) would be 1% of that. Comparatively, there were "several killing sprees", but it pales to match with the 50,000 heads chopped off.
That's part of why I'm not as scared about guns, myself. For one thing, I'm dubious about putting the stats in Oklahoma over the stats of every other state (there are 50 of them, and they're each quite different from one another). For another, I'm dubious about the concept that adequate required training with firearms is ineffective (as people like The Fool and Baron think). And for yet another, I'm FAR more likely to die from any number of causes than I am from a firearm. Heart disease, stroke, AIDS; those are the things I really want to combat. To expend the resources of America on yet another, ultimately futile battle (such as banning all firearms, or putting heavy restrictions on each and every state throughout the US, which might go over well in New York City, but hardly in Texas or many of the southern states) instead of concentrating on what is far more likely to kill each individual, seems short-sighted.
And the fact is that we're already spreading ourselves thin. Resources are going to the War in Iraq, the War on Terrorism, the War on Illegals (How much you wanna bet that's the next "war"?), the War on Drugs, and at one point of time the War on Alcohol. If you institute a War on Guns (kinda an ironic name, eh?), it'll be tantamount to about the same thing. There is no way that you can pass such a hefty demanding legislation; to even get it through to congress would be extremely difficult, and to get it passed would be even more difficult, and to get citizens to actually abide by the letter of the law without question would be impossible.
I'm less scared about encountering a gun freak ready to shoot me at any point of time than I am of burning to death in a fire, or drowning in a swimming pool or in a body of water.
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Jaggy Bunnet
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OK, but that is your opinion and may not be shared by those who disagree with you. Which is why I referred to personal beliefs.
In the UK, you can probably get closer to an ideal of having no guns as there would be a significant part of the population that would refuse to own one. In the US I suspect it would be easier to get closer to everyone having guns than no-one having guns due to a lower resistance to owning guns and a more deeply held commitment to hold onto the ones that already exist.
Jaggy Bunnet
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I think there is a vague possibility that you meant to include the words "do not" after opponents in that sentence. ;-)
This may be what you are referring to, however nobody died.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/774618.stm
Now had he been able to access guns.....
I'm not sure where you had your weapons training but a pistol is -for its' holder - perfect for close combat. Especially hammerless and short barrel (less likely to snag, harder to grab). The key in an alley is where and how you move - and thinking in 3 dimensions (looking in 3 dimensions). I suspect -for most females - being jumped in an alley more precisely means first being pushed into the alley.
That is the difference in talking about a hypothetical situation and a real one. If you want to talk hypothetically then I would agree with you that the default is "no guns". If you want to discuss an already existing society you have to start with how that society is today as the default position.
In the case of an example of a real society e.g. the UK or the USA we start with guns in the society so if you wish to argue for a change it is up to the person arguing for the change to make their case.
Just because something is present in society today does not mean it is as valid as it not being present. Otherwise, we will have to accept slavery as being just as valid as non-slavery, and Creationism should be given time in the classroom along with Evolution, simply because Creationism has been around longer.
If someone argued that there should be slavery in the US today, wouldn't you demand that he provided evidence and arguments, instead of you arguing against it?
Do you feel you have to defend why a society shouldn't have slavery?
Which is not something either Jaggy Bunnet nor I have said. If you think that is what we are saying then you have misunderstood our point.
Jaggy Bunnet
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You mean if they wanted to change from the default position? Absolutely - of course, I have never said otherwise.....
You are the one who is arguing that it is up to those who hold the default position to present evidence to retain it, not me.
Because the question itself isn't meaningful to me.