Spook: I’m surprised and disappointed that you have so casually dismissed, even denigrated, the article, “OF HOLOCAUSTS AND GUN CONTROL.” You have taken two lines and posted them out of context, then insulted the author, in what would appear an attempt to distort the whole point of the article. I’m not exactly sure what point you were trying to make with the quote about the Methodist church’s position on self-defense. I get the impression it was meant to make people discount the article without reading it in its entirety. You’d do well, Spook, designing political campaign adds here in the US.
Again I urge people to read this article and judge for themselves. The paper is well thought out, well researched, and puts the whole gun control debate in a perspective often ignored deliberately by those who wish to cast all who support the 2nd Amendment of the US constitution as extremists. It contains some very startling data, both historical and statistical, regarding the link to gun control and the rise of societal chaos and tyranny. It also discusses logically and thoughtfully the issue of the right of self-defense, presenting both sides of the issue (hence the Methodist church statement, which was meant to show one pole of that issue).
As far as that “ancient document that allows no room for social progression in your society,” your self-admitted ignorance of our constitutional government is in evidence in your comments. The Founding Fathers did indeed make provisions for social changes, by allowing for a process to amend the Constitution (which has been done on a number of occasions in it’s several hundred-year existence). They also made it a difficult process, to insure that any changes would not be made in the name of some transient notion, in the heat of passion, so to speak. The proposition the author makes in the aforementioned article is that changes in society, as attested to by the 170-some odd million people killed in genocides in the last century (perpetuated in spite of, and in some case by, duly elected governments of so called civilized societies), not only do not invalidate the right of the citizen to bear arms, but in fact reinforce the need to protect and preserve that right. The right of self-defense, both from “bad people” in society and from tyranny, is as relevant today as it was 200 hundred years ago, perhaps even more so.
Someone mentioned earlier that the argument that goes, “cars kill more people than guns in America,” is not a good analogy. I disagree. It is certainly not an exact analogy; however, the parallels are in the area of “cost versus benefit.” Allowing people to drive cars has a societal cost, in the form of accidental deaths, negligent homicides/manslaughter, and first and second-degree vehicular homicides. We accept this cost without thinking about it because the benefits are tangible and overwhelming. An armed citizenry also has a societal cost in that a small number of citizens will, through negligence or malice, harm others with those guns. The benefits are more potential than tangible (unless you have prevented harm to yourself because you had a gun with you at the right time), but must be given weight nonetheless. England, Australia, and some other countries/societies have decided (sometimes in accordance with the popular will of their own people, sometimes in spite of it) the benefits were outweighed by the cost. Sometimes those governments did so in the premeditated furtherance of tyranny and genocide, such as in Nazi Germany in the mid to late 30’s, and many third world nations more recently (remember Ede Amein?).
Regarding self-defense, I am not a physically imposing person. If someone brakes into my home or confronts me on the street, I am not willing to bet my life, or the life of my loved ones or even my neighbor’s, that a cop will be there at the instant I need him/her. In the end, the right to keep and bear arms is nothing more than the right to self-defense, either from tyranny or random brutality.
Still waiting for Pongo's take on the article, btw.
