luke warm, on Jun 30 2008, 01:02 PM, said:
helene_t, on Jun 30 2008, 12:53 PM, said:
mycroft, on Jun 30 2008, 06:16 PM, said:
Truly unfortunate that the "I need a handgun to protect me from the government who is taking away my liberty" philosophy has died
How is that supposed to work? This is not a rhetoric question, I really don't get it. Suppose I am victim of some kind of government abuse. I can think of some ways I could defend myself. Some would require a lawyer, some involve using the internet. But a gun? How could a gun be useful for defending citizens against the government?
how were they used to defend the king's citizens from the king's army circa 1770?
Well, some historians might have a different view of the American Revolution... some might argue that the revolutionaries were using their guns to attack the soldiers of the lawful government... but we have to remember that history is written by the victors.
LW wrote, earlier, that history teaches us not to trust centralized governments. I think he is fundamentally wrong on this.
History teaches us many things, as does anthropology. One thing both teach us is that there is a direct correlation between the size and strength of a centralized government and the health, safety, welfare and general living conditions of the population. This does not mean that the match is always exact, but the correlation exists, notwithstanding the unthinking anti-government rhetoric of some conservatives (who often, ironically, insist that the government should punish people who think differently... see how the US treated communists in the 1950s as an example.. free speech for all who agree with us, prison or blacklisting for those who don't)
The highest murder rates known to anthropologists are in hunter-gatherer tribes, the least centralized form of government known to man.
The murder rate in Somalia is likely somewhat higher than even that in Detroit.
There is no recorded example in history of a democratically elected government imposing a tyranny on an unwilling populace (I am not counting the roman empire, since it was never a democracy, and the forms of the republic persisted after the transition to an empire... further, the early emperors appeared to have the support of much of the relevant populace)
Hitler became a dictator after winning an open election, and then (probably) creating an atmosphere of terror.. of fear of the communists.. that allowed him to assume control with the support of the majority of the population.
Lenin prevailed over Kerensky, but Kerensky never represented an actual democracy... very few Russians, even in the big cities, were ever involved in a democratic political movement.
OTOH, recent history shows us that some dictators can be overthrown by a population without ready access to guns. Witness Romania. Witness Poland. Witness East Germany. And so on.
The myth of the need for guns to combat a dangerous government is just that: a myth.
Lest we have any doubt about that, consider the Orwellian Patriot Act.. in a matter of weeks, the US Congress passed a statute, mostly unread by members of Congress, that went further than any legislation in US history to creating a police state... and it was unanimous! And supported/approved of by most of the media and, presumably, most of the people.
A government can become a dictatorship by manipulation of the fears of the populace, and no number of handguns in private hands will prevent that. In my view, most enthusiastic gun owners are more likely to support repressive measures such as the Patriot Act than to oppose it... the dictatorship happens when the majority of the populace willingly surrender their freedoms.... and anyone then opposed to that surrender is likely to be shot, not by the government, but by the populace that has surrendered... in the same manner that Muslims have been discriminated against since 9/11, in the same manner that former members of the communist party were blacklisted in the McCarthy era, and in the same manner that a number of civil rights workers were murdered in the South in the 1960s.
If anyone wants to appeal to history, the least they can do is read some
Doing so might actually reveal that the US revolution might never have happened if the UK had expanded Parliament to include members elected in the colonies (remember: 'no taxation without representation'? What would have happened had representation been granted?).
Finally, history should teach us that societies change. That issues that were important once become irrelevant and that rules that worked in one era may become harmful in others. Some American jurists believe that the Constitution should be read in that light.. that brilliant minds such as Jefferson and Franklin would have understood and approved of that. Others, such as Scalia, think of it as if it were handed down, immutable, from the hands of God.. changeable only by constitutional amendment.. and when is that going to happen? The founding fathers did not have in mind the type of firearm now routinely available on the streets of the US. They had in mind muskets and similar weapons, capable of limited lethality and not exactly easy to carry unnoticed. I've often thought that the US Supreme Court should uphold private gun ownership, without offending the constitution, by allowing anyone to own a firearm provided it was of a design used in the 1780s
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'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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