BF2S Forums Why the gun is civilization

This post is win.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded

...unless you are going against chuck norris.  he's faster than your gun and hits 20x harder. 

You and Chuck Norris are both failers.

Can't really oppose that logic. I've noticed that plenty of people have stories involving guns, but none I've heard resulted in any bullets being fired.
You aren't exactly going to risk your life to do anything when the chances are you'll just be shot.

agreed with the post.

D6717C wrote:

Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

So true. Last week at work, our designer wasn't giving my project enough of his time so I had to confront him. He smashed me over the face with his chair (causing "overwhelming injury") and shoved his monitor up my ass so I had to slink away. If I'd had a gun, however, I could have just capped his ass and waited until we hired a new designer.

Last edited by chittydog (2007-06-12 22:43:33)

tthf wrote:

chittydog wrote:

D6717C wrote:

Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

So true. Last week at work, our designer wasn't giving my project enough of his time so I had to confront him. He smashed me over the face with his chair (causing "overwhelming injury") and shoved his monitor up my ass so I had to slink away. If I'd had a gun, however, I could have just capped his ass and waited until we hired a new designer.

wtf

This is an example of why that article fails. It makes broad generalizations that aren't appropriate for everyday situations. If the author likes guns, good for him, but don't make up these bs examples about how every moment of life is a struggle for survival.

D6717C wrote:

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

Or I can, as they say, baffle you with bullshit. Or use greater force. Or initiate the use of force before you can. You have the possibility to negate my threat or employment of force but not the certainty of doing so just because you have a firearm.

D6717C wrote:

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

The gun doesn't put anyone on equal footing with anyone simply by dint of being possessed. Training, skill, willingness to use the gun are all required. Considering those factors it can also put the bank robber on equal footing with the police officer, a physically unskilled rapist on equal footing with his martial-arts trained victim or a single pissed-off wacko on equal footing with an entire office or schoolroom. The morality or conscience of the person holding the gun has no bearing on their ability to use it any more than any other tool or machine.

D6717C wrote:

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

The gun isn't the source of bad force equations any more than any other machine. However the "a mugger's job is harder when people are armed" idea assumes that the target of the mugging or those around them are either psychic, precognizant or both. The most important weapon of a mugger or similar assailant is surprise. They don't just walk up to you, gun visibly drawn from one hundred yards away, and demand your money. You don't know the weapon or the person wielding it is there until you've got it poking in your ribs or shoved in your ear if they're even halfway accomplished at what they're doing. They're inside your personal space with you before you know it and then all you know is one wrong move or even a breath drawn too sharply is going to result in your brain on the street or a sucking chest wound. This isn't the movies; most of the time you can't tell who's "the bad guy" until they take action and that action is not going to be considerate of allowing you time to prepare a defense.

D6717C wrote:

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways.

It's also true in several ways. Arguments that escalate into gunfire are common enough that yes, it is inarguably true that without a firearm involved in many cases the only things exchanged might be some heated words and drunken threats that go nowhere. Maybe some punches get thrown; more likely it's uncordinated grappling that would embarass a grade-schooler. We know that sometimes if one person involved in a confrontation has a firearm, they will use it even if their lives are not threatened at all; once again, the firearm is a mute machine and does not come with morality or conscience installed at the factory, capable of overriding the personality of the operator and guiding them towards the right path.

D6717C wrote:

Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

More accurately that should say "Any confrontation can be won by one party inflicting enough injury on the other to dissuade further hostile action by the other party.". "Physically superior" is but one factor that can decide the outcome; all you have to do is see that 200-pound beef-and-gravy brawler take a shot to the balls or a kick to the kneecap (or be the one delivering them) to realize that it is definitley not the only deciding factor.

D6717C wrote:

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

The gun is not technically a force equalizer. Like any other weapon, it is a force multiplier; the force it generates that is applied to a target is far greater than the force required to operate it, the gun being one of the more efficient force multiplying weapons available. Also, just as it allows the octogenarian a greater level of force to use against an assailant than they could have available through other means, it also allows the warlord's thug or the gangster a greater level of available force. The machine does not care if the playing field is equal and it will not cease to work in the presence of a disparity in offensive capability.

D6717C wrote:

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded.

Nonsense. It doesn't mean that you can't be forced, it only gives you another possible option to deal with someone using force against you. Having a firearm on your person does not magically make you invulnerable and considering yourself somehow immune to someone else using force against you is dangerously foolish.

D6717C wrote:

It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

It changes the equation but does not remove force from it. And it's only civilized if the person carrying the gun is also civilized.

Two things here; one is that I know I'm not addressing you D6717C but the author of this particular article, the other is that I am definitley in favor of responsible firearms ownership. I am not "anti-gun" in any way, shape or form except in the minds of those who see any criticism of groups like the NRA or any concern about how some firearm owners behave as being anti-gun. That said, this entire article is full of foolish assumptions and hyperbole. Its author seems to be making the outlandish claim that a simple machine is a magic equalizer somehow capable of negating any other factor in favor of the assailant simply by its presence alone. Equally outlandish is the idea that the State not having a monopoly on the use of force somehow guarantees a moral and civilized society. Contrary to popular myth, an armed German population sat by and did mostly nothing as their government rounded up and exterminated their fellow citizens because the State convinced them it was necessary and just to do so. These citizens so dealt with by Nazi Germany were themselves disarmed by the State with the tacit consent of those citizens who remained armed, simply because the State was able to persuade them that those other citizens were a threat and needed to be disarmed. Not all citizens, just a minority that was then liquidated while the armed citizens considered the biggest problem with the whole idea to be the necessity of sweeping human ashes from their doorsteps.

This is the main reason I am no longer enamored with the supposed protectors of the Second Amendment such as the NRA. They come dangerously close to (and sometimes outright state, in the case of Charlton Heston) the idea that firearms ownership is primarily the domain of the white, Christian, heterosexual male in American society; with other classes seemingly only considered when the organization is in need of a little extra support. Otherwise, these other groupings (homosexuals, non-Christians, non-whites, et cetera) are seen as either obstacles or direct enemies in a "culture war", trying to strip the white Christian heterosexual male of his birthright and privilidge due him as the majority composition of the nation. In doing so, they forget the intent of our Founders that we no longer be subject to the tyranny of the majority and instead embrace the notion as if it is a true and sacred expression of freedom and not the very thing our predecessors fought to be free of. They have become not a bulwark against tyranny but an aid to it; not a hand raised in defense of the powerless but a fist raised to strike them down, not a protector of the weak but a protector of the powerful. They can paint as much red, white and blue over it as they like but the rhetoric rings hollow when their talk of freedom and liberty concerns only themselves and those who think and believe as they do.

Now somebody tell me where this blasted soapbox came from and how it got under my feet.

Spark wrote:

Suit yourselves.

In Australia, we personally do not see the need for guns.

Um, you know the author is from Australia.

"When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force."

When you carry your gun you are the threat. Violence perpetuates violence. Gang war anyone?

"Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser."

Are you kidding me? This is the only way to solve a confrontation? An intelligent person can see other options. He leaves important choices off the table. Walk away, avoid situations, and let the law do it's job. I understand that it's not always possible, but we shouldn't be going around pretending to be the "great equalizers". Not everyone has the mental capacity, restraint, and ability to act responsible. I swear kids are pussies these days. They are afraid of pain...get your asses beat, who the hell cares. I've learned some of my best lessons while pulling bloody toilet paper out of my nose. Imagine a world where we all walked around with this attitude. It would be the O.K. corral on every corner. There will always be someone bigger, someone badder, and if you keep rolling the dice they will find you and fuck you up. With or without a gun. Which do you prefer?

I agree with the OP. As a country with very little in the way of gun control compaired to the rest of the western world, it's a testament to the power of the armed civillian that the murder, rape and violent crime rates are so low, thus proving just how effective armed civillians are at defending themselves. [/make-believe-land]

Or alternatively, in reality, the crime stats seem exceptionally good at backing up the arguement that armed criminals are much more effective criminals, and armed civillians aren't particularly more effective at defending themselves.

D6717C wrote:

It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

I think it does affect the way people interact with you, if i'm am in a strange town or whatever and need to ask someone for directions, I'd much rather ask unarmed 220-pound gorilla looking dude than the small civilised looking guy with the gun on his hip.

Vilham wrote:

Hunterofskulls just destroyed that whole article.

D & ST Gold. HunterOfSkulls is fast becoming a contender for Hall of Fame entry. +1