What use guns in New Orleans?

Here's one use:
John Carolan was sitting on his porch in the thick, humid darkness just before midnight Tuesday when three or four young men, one with a knife and another with a machete, stopped in front of his fence and pointed to the generator humming in the front yard, he said.

One said, “We want that generator,” he recalled.

”I fired a couple of rounds over their heads with a .357 Magnum,” Mr. Carolan recounted Wednesday. “They scattered.”
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Overnight gunfire and pre-dawn explosions had heightened the panic in New Orleans where tens of thousands remained trapped amid fetid floodwaters, rotting corpses, armed gangs and troops with shoot-to-kill orders.

There was no word on casualties or the cause of the blasts, including one that erupted at a chemical storage depot near the French Quarter. Flames at a fast-food restaurant threatened to burn down a neighbouring hotel.

Survivors of Katrina's fury recounted horrific tales of bodies piling up, gunbattles, fistfights, rapes, carjackings and widespread looting since the storm struck on Monday.
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http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61905

The chaos that is all over the place is worse than it would be if guns were generally restricted, IMHO.
 
Many Iraqi civilians owned guns under Saddam's regime, despite all the propaganda in the U.S. about private gun ownership as a guarantor of personal liberty. The libertarian writer Lew Rockwell drew attention to this fact during his appearance on Bill Moyers's PBS show a few weeks before the Iraq invasion, inferring that Saddam might have had more political support and legitimacy than the Neocons wanted us to believe.

And how did Donald Rumsfeld interpret the looting in Iraq after Saddam lost power, including the stripping of hospitals and museums? Why, that the rampaging Iraqis demonstrated the "untidy" nature of "freedom"!

Of course, conservative politicos won't come anywhere equating the armed looting in New Orleans with a defensible expression of political sovereignty.
 
Must be time for another gun thread. I can't see that having ready access to guns at a time of civil breakdown has achieved anything positive

Unless, of course, you happen to have a gun when somebody takes the opportunity the civil breakdown and lack of police and other law enforcement to rob / rape / kill you. Or get even with you by, say, pushing you underwater until you drown... hey, who's going to notice one more drowned corpse among the hundreds?

It is, naturally, precisely for times of "civil breakdown" that one wants a gun in the first place.
 
It's a double-edged sword, though. Much easier to rob / rape / kill or get even if you have a gun.
 
Ryokan said:
It's a double-edged sword, though. Much easier to rob / rape / kill or get even if you have a gun.
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Guns are equalizers. They allow those who are weaker--such as, generally speaking of course--women, the elderly, and so on--to fight on equal terms with those who are stronger--such as criminals, which tend to be strong young men.

If all guns magically disappeared, criminals will have the advantage, not only of physical strength, but of "cold" weapons--knives, baseball bats, chains, etc.--which they do not mind carrying while law-abiding citizens do not, and that are excellent for threathening others when you are stronger and trained in using them, but virtually useless for self-defense (even if you happen to carry such a cumbersome weapon) when faced with someone stronger than you.

Furthermore, if you are a criminal in a place with tough gun laws, you are far more likely to commit a crime in the first place, especially in situations of "lawlessness", since you know the victim will not be armed; you will hesitate if you do not know that.

This, of course, is quite apart from the fact that banning guns would only ban LEGAL guns--in other words, it would in effect disarm only the law-abiding population while leaving the criminals armed.
 
Skeptic said:
Guns are equalizers. They allow those who are weaker--such as, generally speaking of course--women, the elderly, and so on--to fight on equal terms with those who are stronger--such as criminals, which tend to be strong young men.
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Guns are not equalizers. Equality of posession of guns does not give two people equal power. It gives the first to pull out his gun and point it absolute power over the other. And the person who does that is most likely going to be the criminal than his intended victim.
 
The same is true of any weapon. What you haven't sufficiently explained is what makes guns fundamentally different from knives, pipes, baseball bats, chains, and other such weapons.

Or even a compound bow w/arrows. Should we exclude those, too?
 
Dr Adequate said:
Guns are not equalizers. Equality of posession of guns does not give two people equal power. It gives the first to pull out his gun and point it absolute power over the other. And the person who does that is most likely going to be the criminal than his intended victim.
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You assume that both sides always have guns. What about when it is two very large unarmed men, against a small woman who is carrying a handgun and is skilled in its use? It is a great equalizer.

Do you have any experience in guns, fighting, or defensive tactics? If you don't then you really are not qualified to discuss the subject. In the same way that I would not be qualified discussing jet engine repair. Unless I was willing to make a big disclaimer that I have no expertise at all in the subject, and am therefore basically just making things up based on what I read in the papers and see in movies.
 
Freakshow said:
You assume that both sides always have guns. What about when it is two very large unarmed men, against a small woman who is carrying a handgun and is skilled in its use? It is a great equalizer.
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No, actually. The two unarmed men, however large, would still not be equal to the armed and dangerous woman trying to loot their property.
Do you have any experience in guns, fighting, or defensive tactics? If you don't then you really are not qualified to discuss the subject.
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What a marvellous ad hominem argument! I mean, it's no substitute for a real argument, but you're a tryer, I'll give you that.
 
Dr Adequate said:
No, actually. The two unarmed men, however large, would still not be equal to the armed and dangerous woman trying to loot their property. What a marvellous ad hominem argument! I mean, it's no substitute for a real argument, but you're a tryer, I'll give you that.
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But I thought you distinctly said that guns were NOT an equalizer. Are you now saying that you were wrong, and they are? Forget for a minute who is the good guy and who is the bad guy here. We can take that up later. The difference in size and numbers has been equalized, correct? Making your previous statement incorrect.

The other part, my asking about your experience, is not an ad hominem at all. I am not attacking YOU. I am questioning your qualifications to make statents like "Guns are not equalizers" From what experience does this come?
 
If there were no guns, people would use knives. If there were no knives, then they'd use 2x4s from wrecked homes.

People are in survival mode, and will use whatever they can get their hands on. If I were stuck there, you bet I'd want a gun on my hip.
 
Freakshow said:
Dr Adequate said:
No, actually. The two unarmed men, however large, would still not be equal to the armed and dangerous woman trying to loot their property.
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But I thought you distinctly said that guns were NOT an equalizer. Are you now saying that you were wrong, and they are? Forget for a minute who is the good guy and who is the bad guy here. We can take that up later. The difference in size and numbers has been equalized, correct? Making your previous statement incorrect.
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No. I think you weren't paying attention when you read my post, so let's underline some of the salient words and try again.

"No, actually. The two unarmed men, however large, would still not be equal to the armed and dangerous woman trying to loot their property."

Have you got that?
The other part, my asking about your experience, is not an ad hominem at all. I am not attacking YOU. I am questioning your qualifications...
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And this is what is known as an ad hominem argument, dear Freakshow. And it is no substitute for a real argument.
 
Ah.

Care to take a stab at my question, as you have time, Dr. A?
(Or AUP, or the other anti-gun folks in general)

Not being sarcastic, but interested in dialogue. Thanks.
 
clarsct said:
The same is true of any weapon. What you haven't sufficiently explained is what makes guns fundamentally different from knives, pipes, baseball bats, chains, and other such weapons.

Or even a compound bow w/arrows. Should we exclude those, too?
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No, I didn't explain the fundamental difference. I didn't know that a fundamental difference was required.

After all, suppose you ask some criminals: why did you choose a gun to snipe at rescue workers ... or shoot up a school ... or assassinate a politician ... or whatever ... rather than, say, a baseball bat --- pray tell me, what is the "fundamental difference"? Then they might, if they understood you, answer as follows: "There is no "fundamental difference". The difference is merely practical. It is not on principle that we use guns rather than baseball bats. We are motivated purely by the consideration of our interests and desires. For this reason we prefer guns." This is why it was the gunstores in New Orleans that were looted, rather than the purveyors of baseball bats.

The difference is purely pragmatic for them: they wish to have guns in order that they might more effectively commit crimes. The difference is purely pragmatic for me: I wish to them not to have guns in order that they might less effectively commit crimes.
 
originally posted by clarsct
What you haven't sufficiently explained is what makes guns fundamentally different from knives, pipes, baseball bats, chains, and other such weapons.
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Perhaps because the fundamantal differences are obvious? Not being sarcastic but interested in dialogue. Guns are uniquely potent weapons because amongst other things: -

1/ Many can be used at very long range - for example sniping. I cannot recall anyone going sniping with a baseball bat or a knife or a chain or a pipe. Unless you know different.

2/ Speed of attack. How many baseball bats can you throw at your victim in a second or how many times can you hit him in a second and how many rounds can you fire with a semi automatic or automatic weapon in a second.

3/ Reduction in personal danger. An attacker with a baseball bat normally has to approach the victim within the range of her baseball bat (unless she prefers to thow it which renders her unarmed) where as a gun nutter can stand off with impunity. This makes it much more likely that a nutter with access to guns can cause significantly more damage to many more people before being stopped than a nutter with a baseball bat.

If you need evidence of this I suugest you look at the the Hungerford massacre in the UK for example. See http://www.jeremyjosephs.com/hunger.htm for example. The massacre led to the Firearms (Amendment) Act, 1988, which banned the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles and restricted the use of other firearms with a capacity of more than two rounds.

I could go on but hope this helps you understand some of the fundamental differences between guns and other weapons.
 
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