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I've decided with all those questions where I invested a great deal of time and thought to answer the question, I'll not only save a copy in case the asker deletes it but try to do a take on it. I used to get so irritated if I spent so much time answering a question only for it to be instantly deleted and not even be able to recover my work. Maybe this will help keep me from getting cranky when it happens.
So here's one for a start. The original question asked why US citizens do not favor complete gun prohibition.
US citizens, what major problems do you foresee if all guns/firearms are totally banned, when many other countries seem to be fine without them?
We live a very limited lifespan and experience in ways that I think make it difficult many of us to conceive of our governments becoming completely tyrannical in our lifetimes, or for our economies to completely collapse to one of lawlessness and desperation, or to experience natural disasters which have a similar effect. It seems more instinctive to trust the government when things are going reasonably well.
The framers of the US constitution did not live this type of modern and luxurious experience. Instead, they tried everything they could to limit the government's powers to empower individual citizens. Instead of focusing the bulk of their efforts regulating citizens, they focused on regulating the government. Yet in spite of their best efforts, individual liberties are gradually being usurped every day faster than they are being restored.
This is a matter of values at the end of the day. You may not agree with them and might find them impractical in the age of drones and missiles. You'll have many practical points for sure. Yet it's a deeply important value to red-blooded Americans. It is with a capable weapon in hand that they give themselves whatever fighting chance they can to protect their own freedoms in the worst-case scenarios.
Putting aside these deep-rooted values, a firearm is just a tool. Here in Japan (I am a dual-citizen to both Japan and the US), firearms are extremely restricted to the point of almost being forbidden. They've done a good job with firearm interdiction (along with narcotics) given that the geography of the country is self-contained in an island. Yet there are grenade attacks by Yakuza lobbing grenades into bars, sarin attacks by terrorists in subways, psychopaths mowing people down with large vehicles, and things of this sort. These are rare occurrences but I would attribute that more to the culture and values which promote cooperation (including with the police), the self-contained geography which helps underground economies from becoming too large and powerful (the US has ~1.5 million gang members in circulation, and a great chunk of their profits come from arms and drug trafficking), etc. I would not be so afraid of arming Japanese with firearms. I suspect it'd just make cases like the Akihabara psychotic killer turn into a shooting spree massacre rather than a lunatic mowing people down left and right with a vehicle.
We are also in a complex technological era. We're approaching a stage where 3D printing is going to become widespread, and that includes the ability to print firearms given only a spec that anyone can download from the internet. Even if governments regulate the internet heavily, they've done a poor job with the darknet. Nail bombs are easy to create in your own home for anyone interested and are a source of some very gruesome terrorist attacks that claim the lives of more innocent bystanders than a firearm. We are moving further and further in this direction where we don't need a firearm manufacturer to provide us the most devastating and lethal weapons. If we obsess so much on the tools used for homicide, we may be focusing too much on symptoms over root causes.
I have been to places like Texas and I trust the people there who have large gun racks. They are of sound mind. The person I don't trust is a complete lunatic and psychopath regardless of what weapon he chooses to use to kill people. I'm not a huge gun person but if such a person were to go rampage in my vicinity, my best chance of survival might rely heavily on those good citizens who arm themselves.
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Excellent mytake! Good to see someone looking into the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Founding Fathers didn't just intend the Second Amendment for hunting, it was as a means of self defense from individuals, gangs, and Tyrants!
I would love to see one on the First Amendment as well, that seems to be under attack even more so!
The way I see the first amendment is not unlike the free market. It's a market of ideas in this case. We exchange things. Sometimes they will be bad, sometimes they will be great. But the wisdom of the founding fathers is that you try to stifle the bad, just like heavily regulating the market, and we end up stifling the good as well.
Yes, but it is under attack, by Big Tech Robber Barons, The Atlantic Council, Foreign Governments, and elements within our own Government as well!
What happens when people fear the supporters of a government? Isn't that the same as this?
Precisely, which is why I think the ultimate one responsible to defend him/her own freedom in the last bastion scenarios has to be himself/herself. It can't be the state and it can't its most loyal supporters.
* his/her. It has to be you, and me. The ultimate responsibility rests with the individual.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of what happens when Trump loses, but claims the vote was rigged?
It's ultimately up to individuals to prevent the state from becoming completely corrupt and tyrannical. Same deal. Anything eventually goes without citizens to defend their rights and uphold the constitution. The constitution is just a piece of writing at the end of the day. It doesn't mean anything if any faction, state or otherwise, starts ruling citizens in a way that ignores it.
I'll pose this question. Someone is breaking into your home. It could be a common thug, the state. The setting could be a time of law and order or complete lawlessness, perhaps driven by a disaster. Who ultimately protects your family? I don't know what Europeans would largely say. Japanese have been bombed towards a pacifist route -- they'll immediately respond with police (the state, i. e.). Maybe we're all doomed in this scenario. But you are a good man as far as I can tell. You'll have a better chance with a defensive weapon in your hand, and so will I too. Yes, weapons are scary. We're all mortals at the end of the day. We're very vulnerable. But the only way those of us who are decent and just want to protect ourselves and our loved ones at the end of the day when shit hits the fan -- and all human history suggests that shit will somehow hit the fan -- is to have some sort of fighting chance... however small. A gun might make a small enough difference.
This is a value thing at the end of the day. Perhaps you're tempted to point some statistics to me that a prevalence of firearms causes more deaths (I hope I didn't strawman there -- it's just due to this delay in online communication that I want to kind of go further than a simple dynamic back-and-forth). Yet so too might every woman following the Golden Rule lead to higher incidents of such women being raped. That doesn't mean that the Golden Rule is wrong. Values. Some of us will live by them, others die by them. But this isn't an intellectual realm we're talking about as I see it. We're talking about right and wrong. You want to be able to defend your freedoms, and your family, as effectively as you possibly can or just rely on the state to do all the work?
This is what Americans are about. Even if you absolutely disagree with it, I've been long enough to get it. This is a good thing in my opinion. It deserves some respect. You meet the good ones who practice target shooting and truly in the mindset of defending their homes and families and they might be some of the finest people you ever meet on the planet. They are good people.
Do you know what a good defensive weapon is in a country without loads of guns? Practically anything. A chair, a kitchen knife, a narwhal tusk...
Do you know what a good defence against an authoritarian government is? People. Lots of them.
I'd be more worried about a sizable minority of people with guns who've decided that their candidate was cheated, based on lies.
Are you like a martial arts master? Cause guns are much more terrifying to most people than not. It didn't suffice to prevent Jews in Nazi Germany or African Slaves in the US from rebelling. Sometimes a single man with a handgun can hold a few dozen people captive. Might say negatively about humanity's lack of balls more than anything else but this seems constant. The gun subjugates very effectively. And I figure two sources will always wield them in geographies like the US: the state and criminals. I'm not all that worried to include Texan patriots into this mix.
[...] It didn't suffice to prevent Jews in Nazi Germany or African Slaves in the US from [submitting]. [...]
This is not a partisan issue to me by the way. I don't care about the current nature of the government or political parties or anything of this sort. Actually I'm trying to make these things as irrelevant as possible. History is very, very relevant to me. The idea of protecting ourselves as a last resort is also.
You're missing the point, because your starting point is a country full of guns. In European countries, the criminals don't usually have guns, and they go for houses that they think are empty.
And, please, stop bringing up the Jews and Nazi Germany; they were less than 1% of the population in 1933, and more than half of them emigrated before 1939. Give them all guns, and they'd still have been powerless.
It's a values thing. Of course, if people are completely outnumbered, they're likely to be overrun -- but they could at least go down with a fight. The fundamental principle is to have as much of a fighting chance as possible to defend. Without it, it starts to work towards our last line of defense coming not from us individually but towards the state, to the police, to the military, towards whatever politicians are ultimately in charge of running the country... or in times of disaster and lawless, potentially any group of people sufficiently armed and violent enough. The second amendment is at least an attempt to prevent that scenario where the government subjugates the people rather than serves the people.
And I'm not suggesting that countries that have banned guns start adopting them. I would suggest though that there are complex times ahead where printing guns with schematics easily obtainable are working towards the norm and weapon manufacturers will cease to be required to produce very lethal weapons at home.
It's why I think, at the very least, the focus needs to shift towards addressing the causes behind criminal behavior -- towards criminology, psychology, sociology, economics, education, parenting styles -- since disarming all individual citizens now and permanently (especially ones who have no interest in abiding by laws) seems too impractical of a task.
Yes Creepy Joe Biden will beat Trump:
![Why I Favor the Second Amendment]()
democrats should be ashamed at their hypocracy #walkaway
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