Costs and Benefits of Guns

[TheRealJuliane]

I have always understood that to be the case, in Russia, in Italy, in Germany, etc. Of course the citizens of China could never own guns under their Communist government. They might revolt! If you think about it, what fascist government would allow citizens to keep the means to resist??

Stephen Halbrook on confiscation of weapons in Nazi Germany

This is a very good link. Triumphguy, please read the page. It explains a lot about the Nazi confiscation of Jewish weapons, and what happened.

You say that if Jews in Nazi Germany had had guns, the Holocaust still would have happened? How do you know that? I posit that Hitler wouldn’t have achieved as much and that possibly, a larger resistance would have formed in Germany and Poland.

Citizens can’t go down fighting if they haven’t got firepower. The first step in any tyrannical dictatorship is to get rid of the means of opposition.

 

[dandingo]

This is what you said:

1. Look handguns don’t solve every problem. They didn’t stop the Nazis: carpet bombing, the fire-bombing of Dresden etc, and the combined armies of the British Commonwealth, America and Soviet Russia were necessary to stop the Nazis.
2. The reason you haven’t been invaded (pre-nuclear age) is that you are not next to China, Japan, Russia, Germany etc - you know countries that historically invade.

Canada doesn’t typically invade countries - though we did burn the Whitehouse (hence its need to be painted white) and kick your behinds in 1812 after you lot invaded Canada

Please show me where I said “handguns would solve every problem”?

Infantrymen, who used small arms, were a HUGE reason that the Nazis were defeated. Nothing solves every problem except God and God alone.

 

[bilop]

I find that using the suffering of the Jews in the holocaust as part of a gun argument is very ignorant of history.

1. The Nazis had no qualms in attacking countries who were more heavily armed than they were: France had more tanks than the Wermacht in 1939. Soviet Russia had more tanks and soldiers when Hitler turned his armies east. So guns did NOT deter Hitler
2. Whether the Jews were armed or not Hitler desired their extermination. Hitler just hated Jews, all Jews, not just Jews without guns. If they had been armed he would just have sent more tanks.
3. Talking about a hypothetical situation where “if the Jews were armed” totally overlooks their courage in places like the Warsaw Ghetto where they fought hand to hand combat from house to house, and their courage, and their fortitude and trust in God in places like Dachau, and Belsen, and again their courage as they built a nation in Israel and rebuilt their place in the world after the War…

We Catholics/Christians have no right to mention the Jewish people’s struggles in an argument like this.

If they had guns, the Nazis may still have killed them, but the Jews could have taken a lot of Nazis with them. That’s good too. I wonder how many eager SS and Gestapo men there would have been if you had a 50% chance of being shot at by the people you went to arrest.

Any person can mention any historical event in a historical discussion. But if you want a Catholic example, the Polish Home Army could have resisted the Nazis much better if they had more arms.

God Bless

 

[Kelfa28]

In the state of MA can someone get a permit to purchase a handgun that will remain in their home only?

This is a long thread and I didn’t go through the entire thing but I saw your question wasn’t immediately answered.

Yes, you can.

I have a license to carry, class A. This means I can lawfully carry a concealed weapon on my person almost where ever I’d like. There are some exceptions like school grounds, establishments that serve alcohol…etc.

However, the state left it up to the individual towns to decide who can actually get an LTC. Some towns just don’t allow it and it’s literally impossible to get an LTC-A.

I know Boston is just impossible…you need to know the chief personally or be a true VIP to even be considered.
Some towns just happen to have a very liberal police chief that won’t allow it. My husband and I have been blessed to live in towns where it’s relatively easy to get an LTC-A.

You just go to the town police department, ask for the paper work to fill out. Take a state-approved safety class and get the certificate, turn that and the paper work in and get finger-printed and have your picture taken. They’ll then do a background check on you and determine if you can have an LTC-A. Then they’ll send you the permit. It’s good for ten years.

If you move…go to the town PD and fill out a paper that tells them you have an LTC-A and want approval to carry through them. Most towns will honor it…but some won’t.

There are other licenses for gun ownership as well like class Bs and licenses just for shotguns or rifles for hunting purposes. But you can get a class A and just keep it in your home.
That is what I do. My weapon is in my safe and only comes out to be cleaned or if I’m going to the range. I never carry concealed because I just don’t feel comfortable doing so. Besides…I go out with my husband much of the time when it’s prudent to carry concealed and he almost always carries. But it’s second nature to him…sort of like how women carry a purse frequently.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Also, someone pointed out that all but one of the multiple shootings since the 1950’s have occurred in GUN FREE ZONES. Hmmmm… I wonder why???

Whether one is conservative or liberal it’s not very intellectually honest to only accept information or evidence that supports a position you (plural you) are emotionally invested in.

There may be a psychological motivation to pick a gun free zone. But I suspect the greater portion of the motivation for most mass shooters has something to do with some connection of some sort they feel (negatively) towards the targets they pick.

The Connecticut shooting targeted small children too. That’s much different than the guy randomly picking a college chess club out of some directory or something.

Also, apparently most these mass shooters tend to know they are going to die at the scene. Either by their own hands or by arriving cops. It goes to that point that there is a thin line between being suicidal and homicidal.

I can’t but help notice most or all these mass shooters in the U.S. are male.

Personally, I think there is something statistically significant about that. I remember reading a book some years ago, authored by some intellectual, that stated no country on earth divides its own citizens so severely between winners and losers than the United States.

I suspect the reasons are multifaceted but I suspect neither conservative or liberal agendas and polemics are innocent in all this. The problem in the United States goes much deeper and is spread more broadly I believe.

I suspect that mass shootings is now a sort of meme, information, now embedded in American culture and minds as a conflict resolution. The male “loser” that is suicidal knows a final solution to his dilemma. Others being armed in and of themselves will not necessarily stop mass carnage. Not that I don’t want to be armed. But I’m under no delusion - being fired on from behind by someone with a M-4 rifle might mean I meet my maker even if I’m carrying 3 pistols on me concealed. Or worse… I might be paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair or bed for the rest of my life.

If armed with a pistol, if I wanted to, I could easily kill 2 or 3 uniformed police officers in broad day light. As the ninja say… no one can be hyper vigilant and on-guard 24/7. And there are too many angles of attack. Too many distractions.

 

[triumphguy]

Please show me where I said “handguns would solve every problem”?

Infantrymen, who used small arms, were a HUGE reason that the Nazis were defeated. Nothing solves every problem except God and God alone.

So you don’t disagree with my other points then

 

[triumphguy]

If they had guns, the Nazis may still have killed them, but the Jews could have taken a lot of Nazis with them. That’s good too. I wonder how many eager SS and Gestapo men there would have been if you had a 50% chance of being shot at by the people you went to arrest.

Any person can mention any historical event in a historical discussion. But if you want a Catholic example, the Polish Home Army could have resisted the Nazis much better if they had more arms.

God Bless

A - Don’t you see the logical fallacy in your argument? If the state can disarm you they can send you to a concentration camp already.

B - the Jews were sent to their deaths by “nice” Germans, middle class and respectable Germans, by neighbours and friends. It was the dehumanization by the Nazis and the acceptance of this by the majority that led to the Holocaust. We do that today with the unborn, the disabled and the elderly. Giving them guns won’t help: but treating each other humanly will. The Jews lost their citizenship, their friends, their right to life as well as their guns.

C - and yes, sometimes the bad guy needs to be stopped dead…

 

[Do_Good_Then_Go]

I do not currently own a gun. But there was a situation in which I’d have liked to have one close by…While in another country, a resident of an apartment building we were staying in went berserk, yelling, throwing things, truly unstable. We had no weapon. Thankfully, neither did he. But it was a very insecure feeling, especially since the police didn’t come for a very long time.

Thanks for answering! I’ve been busy and didn’t see it earlier.

I still don’t understand it, I don’t think I ever will. I live in a country where people generally don’t have guns. The suggestion that teachers could or should be armed fills me with horror and I find it almost impossible to believe that people could be seriously suggesting this. It just seems like escalation with each side arming themselves more and more, like nuclear proliferation only with firearms.

 

[bilop]

A - Don’t you see the logical fallacy in your argument? If the state can disarm you they can send you to a concentration camp already.

B - the Jews were sent to their deaths by “nice” Germans, middle class and respectable Germans, by neighbours and friends. It was the dehumanization by the Nazis and the acceptance of this by the majority that led to the Holocaust. We do that today with the unborn, the disabled and the elderly. Giving them guns won’t help: but treating each other humanly will. The Jews lost their citizenship, their friends, their right to life as well as their guns.

C - and yes, sometimes the bad guy needs to be stopped dead…

A - Really? Because a lot of people here are advocating we peacefully disarm, so the Gov’t can “protect us”?

B - The Jews were mostly rounded up by the thugs, sadists, and criminals that made up the SS, SD, Gestapo, etc. There were no middle-class Germans in Warsaw or Vilnius to herd the Jews onto trains to the camps. There were no middle-class Germans in Russia or the Ukraine where the Einzatsgruppen operated their mobile gas chambers.

Don’t but the nonsense that “all germans” were equally guilty of the Holocaust. That’s as racist as the Nazis were. Collective guilt is completely incompatible with Catholic teaching. Individual Germans made choices to turn in their neighbor, or serev as a camp guard rather than fight at the front. They will be judged individually by God for what they did.

God Bless

 

[triumphguy]

A - Really? Because a lot of people here are advocating we peacefully disarm, so the Gov’t can “protect us”?

But your government is not dehumanizing you, though it is dehumanizing the unborn, which backs up my point. When the state is capable of disarming you it is already capable of sending you to a concentration camp. Other factors need to be at play though.

B - The Jews were mostly rounded up by the thugs, sadists, and criminals that made up the SS, SD, Gestapo, etc. There were no middle-class Germans in Warsaw or Vilnius to herd the Jews onto trains to the camps. There were no middle-class Germans in Russia or the Ukraine where the Einzatsgruppen operated their mobile gas chambers.

Sure there were thugs in the SA, SS, SD etc., but many nice middleclass neighbours turned in their equally nice Jewish neighbours. There are many films and photos of the ordinary family life of the camp commanders and their staff, complete with pretty wives and lovely looking kids.

Don’t but the nonsense that “all germans” were equally guilty of the Holocaust. That’s as racist as the Nazis were. Collective guilt is completely incompatible with Catholic teaching. Individual Germans made choices to turn in their neighbor, or serev as a camp guard rather than fight at the front. They will be judged individually by God for what they did.

Of course the Germans weren’t all equally guilty for the Holocaust - there were many killed for their resistance. I don’t think I said that at all. But all it takes for bad men to rule is for good men to do nothing. And many (most) “good” German men did nothing.
God Bless

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Thanks for answering! I’ve been busy and didn’t see it earlier.

I still don’t understand it, I don’t think I ever will. I live in a country where people generally don’t have guns. The suggestion that teachers could or should be armed fills me with horror and I find it almost impossible to believe that people could be seriously suggesting this. It just seems like escalation with each side arming themselves more and more, like nuclear proliferation only with firearms.

Part of the problem is that our access to guns should not have been infringed upon in the first place. There are already so many gun laws, and criminals ignore all of them. (In the ideal world, people would not commit this sort of crime in the first place.) Law-abiding citizens follow the law, but the criminals do not.

Look at what has happened since last Friday - there has been a huge surge in gun sales because people are afraid the government is going to prevent us from purchasing them. When we are afraid of losing our rights, we try to compensate in whatever way we can, even if it’s not 100% sensible. If airplanes were cheap to purchase, you’d have seen the same thing after the TSA came into being.

I truly believe these “gun free zones” are a big part of the equation. If Adam Lanza were just angry with his mother, he’d have shot her and then killed himself, or called the police and committed “suicide by cop.” He knew he could kill perhaps hundreds of children at the school, because no one would have a gun with which to fight back. All the mass shootings except one have happened in gun-free zones. The Aurora theater shooter picked THAT theater because it was a gun-free zone.

The genie is out of the bottle when it comes to guns in the US. We will never be Europe or any other country, so we have to figure out how to make our reality better.

 

[MarkInOregon]

How about we let adults be adults and choose for themselves? Naw, you need to poke at them and tell them what to do, don’t you???

God: I am the Lord your God,…you shall have no other gods before me
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain
Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy
Honor your father and mother
You shall not kill
Neither shall you commit adultery
Neither shall you steal
Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor
Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife
You shall not desire…anything that is your neighbor’s

Bill: How about you let adults be adults and choose for themselves?

Jesus: Do this in remembrance of me

Bill: How about you let adults be adults and choose for themselves?

 

[shipwrkd]

This thread did prompt me to research homicide rates, and I discovered that the District of Columbia in the USA has a higher murder rate than all but a few of the most violent nations on Earth. Amazing.

Gun laws in the District of Columbia regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the District of Columbia in the United States.

In Washington, D.C., all firearms must be registered with the police, by the terms of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975.
The same law also prohibited the possession of handguns, even in private citizens’ own homes, unless they were registered before 1976. However, the handgun ban was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment acknowledges and guarantees the right of the individual to possess and carry firearms, and therefore D.C.‘s ban on handguns was unconstitutional.[1]
Following the Heller decision, the Washington D.C. City Council enacted a set of rules regulating the possession of handguns in citizens’ homes. In addition to each handgun being registered with the police, the rules require that D.C. residents undergo a background check and submit fingerprints and photos. Residents must take a gun safety course, and pass a written test on the District’s gun laws. For each gun, the police keep a spent shell for a ballistic fingerprinting database. Residents must also declare how the weapon will be used and where it will be kept.[2][3][4][5]

One would think that if control worked this should do it but it doesn’t Your right, DC has a murder rate 3 time higher then the national average and it’s the presidents front yard and the senators backyard. Gun control does not work.

 

[shipwrkd]

BTW Time Entrance, really nice trolling job. “I really don’t know much about guns but I’ve owned a Glock and am looking at a Defender and would like to get an AR15 …” You should have a big smile cuz ya stirred the pot pretty good

 

[TimeEntrance]

BTW Time Entrance, really nice trolling job. “I really don’t know much about guns but I’ve owned a Glock and am looking at a Defender and would like to get an AR15 …” You should have a big smile cuz ya stirred the pot pretty good

I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m one person out of 300 million Americans. If for some reason you have deduced that I’m President Obama, the whole population of Newtown, and both sides (nationally let alone globally) debating or discussing gun violence or gun ownership in the U.S. then you are delusional.

No, I don’t know all that much about pistol craft, ballistics, or all things tactical involving firearms. I’ve have some novice experience in martial arts and boxing. Do you think that makes me a black belt and some journeyman prize fighter? I’m working on my bachelor degree in biology and have taken a few science courses. Do you think that makes me a scientist or biologist?

So, I have some infantry and urban combat training from the U.S. Marine Corps that I spent 4 years in. I suppose you think that ought make me regard myself as a career special forces operator or a Navy Admiral or Marine Corps General that knows all things strategic pertaining to naval combat and land combat? I spent 7 months out at sea on a Navy battleship by the way.

If pistol and rifle craft were analogous to the martial arts belt system I’d have a belt but it would be a low ranking one.

I was just watching some videos on youtube by James Yeager - CEO of Tactical Response - and you can watch his videos from “1911s Suck” to “Martial Art of Guns.” I doubt he’d regard my inquiry and humility (or open mindedness to learn more) as “trolling.” In fact, he has very harsh views on gun owners that think they know it all.

 

[ProVobis]

Switzerland has more guns than the US and one of the lowest homicide rates in the world.

I hear all men are required to serve in the military and that very few actually carry ammunition. But I could be wrong.

 

[TimeEntrance]

I did not write this article, Shipwrkd, nor do I own the Milwaukee Journal. Sorry, you’ll have to pin your blame for gun controversy in the U.S. on someone else.

Pace.

jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/treat-gun-violence-like-disease-medical-college-expert-says-la843qj-184351771.html

“We can predict this weekend that someone is going to get shot,” says Stephen Hargarten, chief of the Emergency Department at Froedtert Hospital.

Hargarten is sitting on a stool inside the emergency room. It is quiet, a slow morning. He is reflecting on the cost of gun violence in America, amid a season of mass shootings.

Aurora, Colo. Oak Creek. Brookfield. Newtown, Conn.

During his career, Hargarten has treated hundreds of gunshot victims. But it was on a Sunday morning in August when he confronted the carnage of a mass shooting for the first time, as he and others treated patients ferried in from the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek. Seven people died, including the gunman. Three others were hospitalized with wounds.

He says he began to apply public health disease outbreak science to the phenomenon of mass shootings.

Hargarten, 63, has thought long and hard about guns in America. He directs the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He speaks with precision about the technical aspects of bullets, injury patterns and human tissue.

The recent spate of mass shootings has sparked a crisis, he says.

“But if you think about it, it’s an endemic problem that is happening every week,” he says of gun violence in America, including homicides and suicides. “There have been over 400,000 people killed with guns the past 15, 17 years. That’s a lot of people. And it happens daily. It happens with regularity in communities such as Milwaukee. So how do you get your head around it? By the initial reaction, it’s a public health emergency.”

 

[shipwrkd]

I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’m one person out of 300 million Americans. If for some reason you have deduced that I’m President Obama, the whole population of Newtown, and both sides (nationally let alone globally) debating or discussing gun violence or gun ownership in the U.S. then you are delusional. .

Nope, don’t think any of that, just like the way everyone got pulled in and turned it into another gun control thread.

 

[ProVobis]

And what if someone tries to murder your loved ones? You may be OK with dying, but many people have reponsibilities to protect others.

A home security system maybe?

 

[ProVobis]

“God created men, and Samuel Colt made them equal.”

If the Gladiators had them, it wouldn’t have been as spectacular IMO.