The right of self defense (use it or loose it)

This thread is to discuss the right of self defense. This translates directly to the right to keep and bear arms in my opinion.

I have given this much thought. In every nation that is built on central control be it a dictator, king, or other type of central authority the right to keep and bear arms is restricted. This dates back as far as you care to go in human history. In the feudal period in Japan and in Europe and in Asia only those elite who were close to the central authority were given this right.

All others were subjects and had no fundamental right. In Japan you simply got on your knees and bowed your head so the Samurai could cut off your head if you offended him or broke the law in some way.

This is the reason for the gesture of knighthood in Europe of bending the knee and bowing the head. This was meaning my life is yours do with it as you will I am your subject.

Then when this loyalty was established then and only then were you given the right to bear arms. But you did so for the king.

It is clear in the US constitution that this whole ideal of the right of the sovereign to control your right to self defense was abhorred and rejected. The right to keep and bear arms is the right to self defense. Being given this personal right to bear arms means you are subject to no king or central control. It meant that you were your own man and could protect your own life and those you love.

You did not have to wait till the police or soldiers arrived to protect you. You could take care of your own life and those of your family.

To ever give up this basic US Constitutional right is to be guilty of being ignorant of why you have this right in the first place. Study your history and you will see. This basic and fundamental right is the second amendment in the US constitution for one reason.

That is to say that no king and no police or army is established above your authority over your own life. Give up this right and you give up your basic right for your freedom to exist in the first place.

I was so disappointed to see the Australians, so much like Americans in their love of freedom give up to socialist pressure and give in and loose this most basic right. Now just try and take it back and see what happens. I was heart sick to hear that the Australians had blundered and given up their right to self defense.

Soon you will remember why that right was so important to your fore fathers. the time is coming when a greater central control will seek to dominate every country and political system. They will all bend the knee that can not defend themselves.

 

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I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this load of hooey.

Did you copy that out of your NRA guidebook or an op-ed in "Soldier of Fortune" magazine?

 

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Well, sort of. Keep in mind that in England for a while just about everyone had to practice with the longbow. Every weekend, out to the back paddock to shoot targets. At one stage this rule was so big that it was illegal in England to play any other sport than archery on weekends.

Yeah, that kinda sucks. The samurai had no concept of honour, only of station and rank and privelage. Luckily the people woke up after a few hundred years and kicked the crap out of them.

I believe the USA constitution says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This statement, I believe, is for the protection of individual states against the federal authority. The USA is, after all, the "United States", as in a collection of individual states submitting to the overall leadersip of a federal authority. That statement mentions a well-regulated militia for the state, not individuals bearing arms.

The USA constitution, it seems to me, makes that protection under the statement: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." This statement is not clearly applied to state or federal authorities, so I would assume it means that citizens should be safe in their homes and all from all threats. The guns bit is covered by that well-regulated militia statement.

What exactly are you talking about there?

 

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Im GLAD that in Australia the ownership of guns is restricted. It means there is less chance of killing someone (or BEING killed) in the heat of the moment. It might not protect me from ALL murders but i read (don't know where) that most victoms are killed by someone they know and that most murders are crimes of passion.

 

Hmpf,...

Never heard of Bushido then?
I think (because you say something like that) that you haven't got the slightest idear of what Japanese culture is all about.

 

Some quotes from the authors of the constitution

Below are some quotes from the founders and signers of the constitution for the United States of America. I think they best reflect the intent of the second amendment. They make it very clear that the intent is the personal right of the people to keep and bear arms.

---------------------------quotes-------------------------

The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were one half deprived the use of them . . .

--- Thomas Paine, Thoughts on Defensive War, 1775

The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.

--- Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...

--- Samuel Adams

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

--- Thomas Jefferson, proposal Virginia Constitution, June 1776, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

--- James Madison, The Federalist No. 46

Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discression... in private self-defense...

--- John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Governments of the UAS, 471 (1788)


The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyrany in government.

--- Thomas Jefferson

Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.

--- James Madison

 

Betavoltaic
Thanks for those quotes, very interesting.

Fukushi
Japanese culture? As I understand it, the Japanese people rose up and crushed the samurai class beacuse the samurai were tyrannical bastards. Meiji? An army of samurai versus an army of people with guns? Lots of dead samurai. Ring any bells? Bushido was the way of the samurai in the same manner that chivalry was the way of the feudal lords on medieval Europe. It was a code designed to maintain states and keep the classes intact. It kept the many collared by the few.

 

Actually, "feudalism" was the system that kept the classes intact and the lords in power. "Chivalry" was a code of honor. Much the same way that "feudalism" was the system that kept the lords in power in Japan (though different from European feudalism). Bushido was the code of honor and conduct of Samurai, and Samurai were the servants of those who truly ruled.

As an example of honor, yes a samurai could cut off somebody's head for a perceived insult. And then the samurai had to go before his lord and explain what had happened. If the lord thought that he had acted out of line, he would order the samurai to kill himself. And then the samurai would do it on the spot. There are plenty of historical examples of when a samurai got out of line and killed a commoner, and then had to kill himself as a result.

To get back to the main point...

A government is essentially a monopoly on force. According to Hobbes, individuals within a society give up their rights to defend themselves in favor of allowing the government to defend them. This is the idea of "social contract". In the absence of a social contract, it will be "man against man" where the strong dominate the weak.

The problem arises when you have a corrupt government ruling over a population without enough power to change the government, or a government that is unable to provide for the basic safety of its people.

Striking a balance between these two factors -- the people being protected by the government, and the people protecting themselves FROM the government -- is one of the central themes of the nature and role of government in society today.

 

Thank you CutterShane!

For the main point:
The way as I perceive it, it is indeed a choice of balance,...but every weapon increases the risk of it being (ab)used,....with who knows what and how many people around.

In a way the right to carry weapons has been rendered useless, because look at what we the people are up against: a professional army,...whith heavy weaponary,...satatlites who can beam you to death,...wavelengths that can damage your brains,...lights that can burn trough anything,...ultasoundwaves that can splatter your guts inside-out.

hehehe,...what are we to do? Take up arms? hehehe: suicide,...
maby better to die like that then to live in a world like this? No : violence never leeds to prosperity,...of the mind. And the NEW WORLD ORDER should know that and also that it's not a good idear to try to control the 'entropy of toughts' that the brain needs in order to improve,...and to adapt to new circumstances: AI and stuff,...

actually the police in our country was even founded for the control of riots,....yes: to keep the peoples under wrap.
Ofcourse there are enough people who don't favor the ruling goverment especially that of the NEW WOLRD ORDER.
I think in this way the use of weaponary is useless,....because we're not only up against an enemy that has no boundaries,...but also has the power to destroy any kind of resistance,...exept: terrorism,...

singel-unit-cells,...often even one man/woman are not something you can not just easely single-out.
Exept when THE ORDER will find it's reason within this to conduct the horrible realisation of legalisation of bio-telemetry protection under the mean stream vision of the people that it's really nessesary. Aka: Georgy Orgy. Barcodes and implants and stuff already happening.

'They' make use of the media: making the people actually believe in the Sh*t they are selling : that they are in danger,...
It's all actually a way to either: pave the way for some profitable and lucrative bussiness,...or to destroy some of the 'ennemy'.

wich I think is not a good concept: 'ennemy' pfff! I considder this the most hypocrite word you can take in your mouth.
Okay: we 'ARE' in danger,...all the time,...but the right of carying arms is not usefull any-more.

who takes up wich values and straps a bomb around him/herself,....?
With him/her dissapears a whole universe to explore,...a whole life to live,....and by all the heavens of the universe: who knows how many innocent people will lose theirs too?

No I therefor DO NOT considder weaponary or the use of them a good way to change things,...or to protest.
it will only give the goverment the exuse to imply even more FREEDOM-RESTICTING laws upon the people.

But doing nothing isn't good either. you just can't be inact and aspect that everything happens according to some divine rule or law of things to happen and that everything will turn out well: that system is acctually being abused all over the world to surpress the minds of people and to even make them believe it was 'some' god's will,...

And I consider this verry naïve and neglecting reality.

All we can do is find ourselves a good lawyer and take on THE NEW WORLD ORDER
and EXPOSE them for the tiranny and supression they bring within the harts and lives of people.

In a revolution there are also unvoluntary victims,...
Only the future and not history can tell if the revolution was succesfull,...
so : we should not look upon history to take charge of our future,...altough there are lessons to learn,...a man must always adapt him/herself to the circumstances of the time beign.
And the circumstances don't call for armament but for WORLD-WIDE-DISARMAMENT!!!

if you want to make a living out of peace then consider this:
-NO more army's,...
-no more weapons,...
-no more people to send people to their deaths.
-the less weapons circulate troughout the world, the more the use of them will be non-conformant,....and declared as imoral.

Thx
:bugeye:

 

Adam:
Do you take an othe when you join the Australian milatary and if so what is it?

also do you know where i could find the othe of office that the PM and his minsters swear to?

betavoltaic:
I trust our democrasy even though i DON'T trust the pollies. I trust in the separation of powers that stops the Gov from doing anything they like. They are elected to rule us under the rules set out in the constitution. Their are a lot of people who would like to get rid of our state goverments because they are just one more level.

Australians have never had to fight our way to freedom like the USA did. The closest we ever came was the Ereka stokade on Bakes hill. After that small battle the gold miners were represented in the House of reps. We have fort to maintan our freedom but against OTHER goverments not our own.

Our polles may be corupt to some exstent. They may use undersirable tatics to get into goverment but for the most part what they do is what they belive is the best thing for the country. I don't like John Howard but he has done what HE belive is in our best interests. My problem with him is I don't agree with his vision but i would NEVER acuss him of not working in the interests of the country

Think i will post a link to our constitution if i can find one

By the way our police are placed so they (along with other emergency services) can get to anywhere in 5 min.

 

The most powerful weapon is the human mind

As such the human mind can not be taken away unless it is given up for control by another. Be this other a government or a person.

The human mind is without doubt the most powerful of all weapons on the Earth. Without the mind what is the sword but a length of steel.

Guns are not the only weapons effective against a tyrant but they are a measure of force that must be countered, because of that they have tactical advantage if they are in wide spread use in the hands of the public. The gun like any weapon is just a tool but it is an effective one and enables us to arm a large population in such a way that they become a deterrent to force being applied against us.

We have one set weapons that are far more effective and can be distributed and used far and wide without a lot of training. Cameras and computers and private networks to disseminate information. Truth that can not be denied because it is recorded and distributed widely and quickly. That is one very effective weapon against tyrants. Self defense takes on many forms. Guns are one of the early methods of equalization. Others are evolving every day.

 

betavoltaic

Did you actually read what i wrote?:bugeye:

Yes the defence against goverment coruption is the Media and democrasy. That is the scociaty we live in and i LIKE it that way. I don't WANT to own a gun. I have the police to defend me from crimanalls and the Army to defend me from other govements. I defend myself from OUR goverments potential coruption by keeping myself informed of whats happening and taking voting seriously. In that respect we are MUCH more protected than the USA we all take an interest in our goverment because we HAVE to. It is illegle NOT to vote here. That is all the protection I WANT or NEED

 

Asguard, you might try looking around at www.federal.gov.au.

When I joined up we swore loyalty to the Queen, and her proxy the Governor General. But I believe that has changed now.

 

Thanks adam, I couldn't find it though

Its strange you swear to the Queen when its the Paraliment who calls you out

betavoltaic:
The point is that the Goverment, The Milatary The courts and the Police are there to serve the people of Australia under the Australian constitution.

We shouldn't NEED to defend ourselves from these instiutions because they are there for our BENIFIT.

Shouldn't this really be under the politics section?

 

Betavoltar,

I am starting to wonder: what is your standard of "much thought"?
Given the very one-sided views expressed in your posts, it looks like you have been spending much time pleasing your confimation bias.

Give us information on:
* What are the reasons for the (other) civilised countries to abandon the right to bear arms?

* Are there any arguments against the proposition that the right to self-defence is essential to a state?

* What alternatives are there than the right to bear arms to secure the right to self-defence?

After this have been answered and you still feel the same way, there is one more question to answer:
* What will you do if you would find out that the people have more freedom than they can handle?

Merlijn

 

I'm not sure I like the idea of everyone having guns. Look what has happened to the USA. People just shooting each other all over the place. Lots of accidents too.

If the criminals have guns, then the law-abiding citizens have guns to protect themselves, whon't the criminals then just get armour and bigger guns? And won't there then be simply the same situation but with more guns around?

Asguard: Also, I think the oath I took mentioned service to, and protection of, Australia and the Australia people. Not sure. They also made me sign that stupid Official Secrets Act, and I forgot about that a few minutes later too.

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Hahah. I love this.

Give everyone guns, just get rid of Mortal Kombat. That oughta get rid of violence.


Hahahahaha.



If you're a half-decent parent you will influence your kids beyond Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat.

If you're a half-decent parent that is.

 

A little research for you laughing boy

Tylor,

Video games figure in school shootings

The war-toy connection

Placing blame

SCREEN VIOLENCE AND YOUTH

Health organizations release statement linking violence in media and children

 

Our schools' lost innocence

Is violent pop culture holding kids hostage?
By C. RAY HALL
The Courier-Journal
Sunday, December 6, 1998


The video surveillance cameras at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., must have captured a few images of a boy in a trench coat last May 21.

In an age where nothing seems real unless it happens on television, this was art imitating life imitating art.

The boy in the trench coat, Kip Kinkel, allegedly murdered two students and wounded 25 others, hours after killing his father and mother. Media reports say he watched "South Park" at home, in the company of his dead parents. The show could always make him laugh.

In "South Park," a fourth-grader named Kenny is killed weekly, only to reappear in the next episode.

There is, as yet, no knowing whether Kip Kinkel expected his victims to rise from the dead. Witnesses seem to indicate otherwise: He intended for them to stay dead.

"If you were still standing, he'd shoot you again," says Betina Lynn, a senior who was shot twice.

Larry Bentz, Betina's principal at Thurston, says it's "time to grow up and stop denying the fact the level of violence in the media desensitizes kids to violence.

"I'm not talking about just films -- I'm talking about video games, the newspapers and the news. You see these kids who live in front of those video games and they're blowing characters away, and they come back to life as soon as you turn the button back on. How can that not desensitize kids to violence?"

Desensitize? Video games may actually train children to commit violence, in the opinion of Dave Grossman, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and author of a book on the subject, "On Killing."

Grossman has had an uncomfortably close view of teen-age violence -- he teaches psychology at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro; he was among the first counselors to arrive at Westside Middle School after the shootings there last March.

What he calls "point-and-shoot" video games -- with toy guns wielded by the players -- are remarkably similar to military training devices, he says. The Army knows that its devices can condition a soldier to fire reflexively, to overcome natural inclinations not to kill.

"We've taught our children to kill," Grossman says, "and we've taught them to like it."

As gunfire sullied the Arkansas air last March, a Westside High School teacher alerted her class that someone was outside, shooting middle-schoolers. Her students' response stunned her, Grossman says: "Keep in mind, these were the older brothers and sisters of kids in middle school. And do you know what the teacher said they did when she told them? They laughed."

Go to a theater, he suggests, sit through a horror film, and watch the audience. You will see children too young to be there, and they will laugh at the gore, because they are conditioned to find it pleasurable, he says.

Blaming any act of violence on popular culture seems highly problematic, at best, and irresponsible guesswork, at worst. Millions of youngsters are exposed to the same images without resorting to violence.

"I know that our kids come to us already seeing something like 13,000 killings on television," says Jamon Kent, the school superintendent in Springfield. (And he doesn't mean before high school. He means before grade school.)

Pop culture bombards young people
with messages of violence

Russell Skiba, director of Indiana University's Institute for Child Study, says, "Even the heroes that I see on television are solving their problems through the use of violence."

And Dr. Pamela Riley, a former school principal, adds, "In the past, the No. 1 influence on young people was the family. But it seems more and more today that young people are influenced by peers -- and the media.

"I think the type of violence that young people are seeing is much more severe," says Riley, executive director of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence, in Raleigh, N.C.

"I don't want to necessarily blame movies, Satanism, rock and rap for everything that goes on," she says. "But I think the research shows it can be linked to more aggressive behavior. And I don't think we have a true reading yet on . . . just what kind of effect that's going to have."

Many studies of media violence and its effects are equivocal, Skiba says. "But," he adds, "if you look at the research on children's exposure to violence in the media . . . at all levels, whether it be elementary school or middle school, or high school -- even preschool -- exposure to more television violence yields greater aggression."

Skiba worked on a White House school-violence task force that produced "Early Warning, Timely Response," a guide sent to educators across the country. The lead investigator was Kevin P. Dwyer, president-elect of the National Association of School Psychologists.

"All the media research tells us that most interpersonal problems are solved on television through violence," Dwyer says. "About 86 percent of television movies use violence to solve an interpersonal problem. And women are victims much more on television than they are in real life."

(In the four school-shooting cases examined in this series, 41 of the 59 victims were females. In Arkansas, 14 of 15 victims were females. Two, and possibly three, of the shooters in these cases targeted girls who had spurned them: In Mississippi, Luke Woodham murdered Christina Menefee, the girl he professed to love.)

"I'm not naive enough to think (if) a child watches a movie . . . it's going to make him do this," Riley says. "I think there are multiple factors."

It is tempting to look for pop-culture influences whenever a boy shoots up his school. And it would be implausible not to find them: What teen-ager isn't affected by pop culture?

Michael Carneal, the 14-year-old who killed three and wounded five at Heath High School a year ago, was linked early to "The Basketball Diaries," in which the hero fantasizes about shooting up his school. Carneal told police he had watched the movie. But he later told a psychologist he didn't remember much about the film, and denied that it played a role in the shooting.

School murders in Kentucky and Washington do seem to have at least one common pop-culture connection: Stephen King's "Rage." In the book, a boy takes his class hostage and murders his teacher.

In 1993, Scott Pennington took his senior English class captive at East Carter High School, in Grayson, Ky. He killed his teacher and a custodian.

Three years later, on Groundhog Day, 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis of Moses Lake, Wash., put on a long black Western gunfighter's coat, hid his weapons under it and took over his Frontier Junior High algebra class. The toll: two dead students, one wounded student and one dead teacher.

King wrote "Rage" (under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) near the end of his own tortured teen-age years. In those days, he told Court TV, he keenly remembered the feeling of "rejection, of being an outsider, what it was like to be teased relentlessly, and to entertain visions, fantasies of revenge on the people who'd done it to you -- the system that had done it to you."

King called his work "a troubling book for me" and expressed "regret that I ever wrote the material."

Linda Ryker, whose sons, Jake and Joshua, helped subdue the shooter in Oregon, says: "You can blame it on all the inanimate objects that you want to -- the violent movies, the television programs, the games the kids play. But you're not . . . teaching them to own up to their responsibility."

Skiba suggests -- though he says much more research needs to be done -- that constant exposure to violent imagery, combined with permissive or uninvolved parenting, may explain why some teen-agers turn murderous. Parents need to explain that television does not reflect reality, he says.

Fantasy and reality collided in the case of Loukaitis, the Washington teen-ager. In court testimony, Loukaitis's mother recalled her own dark fantasy: She wanted to kidnap her husband and his lover at gunpoint, tie them up, and make them watch as she killed herself. She had revealed this fantasy to her 14-year-old son. To his mother, he repeated the advice in the preface of King's book "Rage": Pick up a pen and write about it. Don't pick up a gun.

But Loukaitis did not follow his own advice, or King's counsel. Instead, he picked up a gun, took over his algebra class and shot the boy who had called him a "faggot." (There are indications two of the boys in the four cases examined in this series -- Michael Carneal and Kip Kinkel -- were similarly teased at school.)

In the face of such finality, words hardly avail. But, on Court TV, King gave it a try, preaching patience. "Wait," he advised troubled teens. "It gets better. These things pass. I think that for most of us we look back on high school as a bad dream we had once, and we got out of it without having to pick up a gun and shoot anybody."

 

"There is, as yet, no knowing whether Kip Kinkel expected his victims to rise from the dead. Witnesses seem to indicate otherwise: He intended for them to stay dead"

Yes, that's right. It is not a paren'ts responsibility to teach their kids that being killed does not allow for re-birth and that life does not run in weekly episodes.

You'll make a great parent.