Gun attack at Dallas police headquarters

[Brian Peacock]

So, the real question is who should be disqualified and why...

If everyone, because people are stupid when they're enraged but demonstrably less inclined to cause harm when it involves making physical contact.

[Seth]

So, the real question is who should be disqualified and why...

If everyone, because people are stupid when they're enraged but demonstrably less inclined to cause harm when it involves making physical contact.

A stunning testament to your paranoid mistrust of your fellow human beings...

[JimC]

So, the real question is who should be disqualified and why...

If everyone, because people are stupid when they're enraged but demonstrably less inclined to cause harm when it involves making physical contact.

A stunning testament to your paranoid mistrust of your fellow human beings...

Paranoid distrust is clearly more associated with people who fear others so much that they feel the need to arm themselves to the teeth, not those who do not own (or want to own) a firearm...

[rainbow]

You do, however, have to pay a transfer tax and pass a background check to own a tank (or any other vehicle) with a main gun with a bore exceeding .50 caliber, plus a transfer tax for each round of ammunition. But it's still legal to own one.

Where does it mention .50 calibre in the US constitution?

How dare they interfere with your right to bear arms!

[Svartalf]

You do, however, have to pay a transfer tax and pass a background check to own a tank (or any other vehicle) with a main gun with a bore exceeding .50 caliber, plus a transfer tax for each round of ammunition. But it's still legal to own one.

Where does it mention .50 calibre in the US constitution?

How dare they interfere with your right to bear arms!

"the right to own and bear arms shall not be abridged", that's pretty clear, period.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

So, the real question is who should be disqualified and why...

If everyone, because people are stupid when they're enraged but demonstrably less inclined to cause harm when it involves making physical contact.

A stunning testament to your paranoid mistrust of your fellow human beings...

Your root assumption, which is that Joe Gunowner will knowingly and willingly illegally transfer a gun to a criminal because he's a "gun nut" is thoroughly flawed.

Where did I ever make that claim?

That was the collective "you."

Where did "we" collectively make that claim, except in your "they're after my gnu!" paranoia?

Didn't bother reading the rest. Life's too short to read a wall of text when you know it's going to be 99% bullshit.

[Seth]

You do, however, have to pay a transfer tax and pass a background check to own a tank (or any other vehicle) with a main gun with a bore exceeding .50 caliber, plus a transfer tax for each round of ammunition. But it's still legal to own one.

Where does it mention .50 calibre in the US constitution?

How dare they interfere with your right to bear arms!

Indeed. How dare they, because it doesn't. The US Constitution says "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Pretty damned clear to any sane person. "Arms" means arms, defined as "weapons and ammunition; armaments." "Shall not be infringed" means shall not be infringed, defined as "to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another."

And that is why the NFA skirted the 2nd Amendment by being a tax law. Originally the $200 tax stamp required to transfer an NFA article was enough to keep most people from trying to do so. In the 30's, a silencer might cost $10 and a Thompson machine gun $150. Most people just didn't want to pay $200 to get permission to own either one. Nowadays a suppressor is easily $500 to $1500 and a Thompson machine gun, if you can find one, will set you back at least $25,000, so $200 is chicken feed.

Which is why suppressors and short-barreled rifles are a very, very hot NFA item now, such that the NFA branch is way, way behind processing Form 4 applications (partly deliberately) because of tens of thousands of people buying either or both. Machine guns are problematic because of the ban on manufacture for civilian sale of machine guns, meaning that the only ones you can buy are at least 25 years old and already on the NFA registry. An HK MP5 bought today by a police department is about $850. A civilian-legal registered MP5 is about $15,000.

But we're working to get that ban overturned because there's no reason for it. No privately-owned NFA weapon in the entire history of the NFA registry has ever been used by it's legal owner to commit a crime.

[Brian Peacock]

So, the real question is who should be disqualified and why...

Everyone, because people are stupid when they're enraged but demonstrably less inclined to cause harm when it involves making physical contact.

A stunning testament to your paranoid mistrust of your fellow human beings...

There you go again, denigrating my mental health for no apparent reason other than you disagree.

So who or what am I paranoid about and/or mistrusting of exactly? If you don't think people are stupid (act without forethought) when they're enraged please offer some counter point worth discussing. If you disagree that people are demonstrably less inclined to cause each other harm when it involves making direct physical contact with another person then again, please feel free to offer some explanation. Don't forget that the context here is a no-guns scenario.

If you're going to suggest that it's unreasonable of me to act as if nobody to going to try and kill me then i) perhaps you need a respite period away from your particular cultural setting, and ii) don't waste your breath.


Charleston church shooting: nine people dead, suspect at large – latest updates


(btw: fixed my own typo in the quote.)

[Seth]

So, the real question is who should be disqualified and why...

Everyone, because people are stupid when they're enraged but demonstrably less inclined to cause harm when it involves making physical contact.

A stunning testament to your paranoid mistrust of your fellow human beings...

There you go again, denigrating my mental health for no apparent reason other than you disagree.

I think tarring everyone with the same specious brush justifies the analysis I provided.

So who or what am I paranoid about and/or mistrusting of exactly? If you don't think people are stupid (act without forethought) when they're enraged please offer some counter point worth discussing. If you disagree that people are demonstrably less inclined to cause each other harm when it involves making direct physical contact with another person then again, please feel free to offer some explanation. Don't forget that the context here is a no-guns scenario.

Well, the obvious implication of your statement is that everyone should be disqualified from possessing arms merely because some of them may from time to time act stupidly when enraged. This of course ignores the obvious fact that when some individual does so, it is in the best interests of those who are the potential victims of enraged stupidity and violence to have the necessary tools to defend against such harms. Because the enraged stupid can always find or create lethal weapons from almost any object at hand, it behooves those who are potential victims to prepare themselves with superior arms with which to deter, deflect or prevent such harms. It appears that you assume that because it is possible for any person to become stupidly enraged, that therefore everyone will become stupidly enraged, evidently at unpredictable random intervals, and thus cannot be trusted to carry defensive arms under any circumstances. Facts, however, show this to be ridiculously untrue and therefore I conclude it's a manifestation of your fundamental paranoia of others.

If you're going to suggest that it's unreasonable of me to act as if nobody to going to try and kill me then i) perhaps you need a respite period away from your particular cultural setting, and ii) don't waste your breath.

You may act in any way you please, that's entirely your right. And you will perforce suffer the consequences of your risk analysis, for better or worse. What is not your right is to make a risk analysis for others or attempt to control how others prepare themselves against the potential of sudden and unexpected criminal violence.

Charleston church shooting: nine people dead, suspect at large – latest updates


(btw: fixed my own typo in the quote.)

Evidently they are looking for a single 21 year old male suspect. My question is how and why was a single 21 year old male able to kill nine people and escape. The fairly obvious answer is that nobody but the 21 year old male suspect had a gun and therefore the nine victims were utterly helpless to defend themselves.

[Brian Peacock]

So, the real question is who should be disqualified and why...

Everyone, because people are stupid when they're enraged but demonstrably less inclined to cause harm when it involves making physical contact.

A stunning testament to your paranoid mistrust of your fellow human beings...

There you go again, denigrating my mental health for no apparent reason other than you disagree.

I think tarring everyone with the same specious brush justifies the analysis I provided.

I can tell you're trying your best but really? I tarred nobody. Angry people with a gun in their pocket are more liable to do more harm than angry people without. Angry people do stupid things, whether armed or not, but people are demonstrably less inclined to harm others where it involves direct physical contact. A gun does away with that extra level of restraint - it offers a remote solution in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else. You're not really engaging with this part of what I said - which is in fact, the whole of what I said. Instead you've resorted to personal jibes and denigration, and while creating an interesting story about my character and motivation might seem to justify your self-righteous ire, it is nonetheless just that; a story you're telling yourself and others to avoid a very simple point: everyone is safer among an unarmed society.

So who or what am I paranoid about and/or mistrusting of exactly? If you don't think people are stupid (act without forethought) when they're enraged please offer some counter point worth discussing. If you disagree that people are demonstrably less inclined to cause each other harm when it involves making direct physical contact with another person then again, please feel free to offer some explanation. Don't forget that the context here is a no-guns scenario.

Well, the obvious implication of your statement is that everyone should be disqualified from possessing arms merely because some of them may from time to time act stupidly when enraged.

Yes, because the harm they do is disproportionate to any claim to a right of possession. And while I did suggest that the general population at large should be unarmed i dispute your attempt to trivialise and dismiss the idea out of hand because i) you did ask, and ii) the apparent 'mere-ness' of the reason should not be so quickly or glibly decoupled from the context of the discussion or the question asked. Such as...

... This of course ignores the obvious fact that when some individual does so, it is in the best interests of those who are the potential victims of enraged stupidity and violence to have the necessary tools to defend against such harms.

... where you imply that possession of a personal firearm is a kind of socially-benign and selfless act which benefits all, and that a gun is a 'necessary tool' even in the context of an unarmed population! Why, in the context of an unarmed population, where the ability for anyone to try and kill you from more than an arms length away is limited, do you think you'llo need a firearm in your toolbox? Oh yeah, because you can't imagine yourself without one, and...

Because the enraged stupid can always find or create lethal weapons from almost any object at hand, it behooves those who are potential victims to prepare themselves with superior arms with which to deter, deflect or prevent such harms.

... you can imagine some angry person being more determined, resourceful and better tooled than you which, you say, 'behoves' you (a necessary duty, obligation, or responsibility) to think ahead, to be more determined, resourceful and tooled up still - and even as you paint a picture of premeditated action far removed the context of people acting impulsively without forethought but without guns.

I can imagine someone sooo enraged, determined, resourceful and tooled up that they're willing to use a couple of attack helicopters on me. Should I declare an exclusion zone around my house and pop an air defence system on the roof? An imaginable threat is not a reasoned or reasonable threat, and within the context of an unarmed population it is not reasonable to think you need to defend yourself against armed assailants. And no, that does not mean that you can't take, or should not take, any other reasonable measure to keep yourself safe and secure.

It appears that you assume that because it is possible for any person to become stupidly enraged, that therefore everyone will become stupidly enraged, evidently at unpredictable random intervals, and thus cannot be trusted to carry defensive arms under any circumstances. Facts, however, show this to be ridiculously untrue and therefore I conclude it's a manifestation of your fundamental paranoia of others.

These assumptions are your own making and cannot be reasonably inferred from the two very clear sentences I posted on the matter.

Rather than saying that every enraged person is a danger I said that angry people often act without thinking ahead. In such a circumstance people are demonstrably less inclined to act impulsively to cause each other harm if it involves making direct physical contact. Remove the potentials for killing someone impulsively without touching them and you remove the opportunity for that to take place. Yeah, I know that's not good enough for you, because you can still imagine someone with a knife, or a pipe, or bigger muscles, sharper reflexes, and worse attitude wanting to kill you, which says more about your cultural setting than you think. It suggest that you find yourself in a society where you are exposed a high rate indiscriminate and possibly extreme or lethal violence.

If you're going to suggest that it's unreasonable of me to act as if nobody to going to try and kill me then i) perhaps you need a respite period away from your particular cultural setting, and ii) don't waste your breath.

You may act in any way you please, that's entirely your right. And you will perforce suffer the consequences of your risk analysis, for better or worse. What is not your right is to make a risk analysis for others or attempt to control how others prepare themselves against the potential of sudden and unexpected criminal violence.

Now who's freely applying the tar brush?

This is exactly why I suggested you spend some time in a demilitarised part of the world. Guns only seem a 'necessary tool' within a gun culture, and it demonstrates the limitations of your own thinking to presume that one is somehow rendered unduly vulnerable and defenceless by their absence.

The underlying question in the 'gun debate' devolve around the undoubted sense of personal power and authority a personal firearm lends any individual (until they meet a person with a big gun and a badder attitude of course) and, perhaps more importantly, the nature of the relationship between those with guns and those without. I doubt whether these question can ever find traction while people are so determined to parrot tired fables and canards about how possessing the ability to remotely kill others makes a society less violent and more stable and/or free.

[Seth]

I can tell you're trying your best but really? I tarred nobody.

Wrong. You tarred "everyone."

Angry people with a gun in their pocket are more liable to do more harm than angry people without.

But not everyone is angry, nor will every angry person do harm to others, whether or not they have a gun. Your statement shows paranoid fear of everyone because you falsely presume that "anger" plus "gun" will inevitably result in "more harm," which is obviously a fallacy. You also falsely presume that "angry" and "no gun" will inevitably result in less harm, which is demonstrably not the case.

Angry people do stupid things, whether armed or not, but people are demonstrably less inclined to harm others where it involves direct physical contact.

Are you saying that angry people are less inclined to engage in physical violence if they are unarmed versus being armed?

A gun does away with that extra level of restraint - it offers a remote solution in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else.

Er, pointing a gun at someone, much less discharging it at them is as personal as it can possibly get. Only the criminally deranged place so little value on human life that they will do so at the drop of a hat. The facts show that police officers are eleven times more likely to shoot someone in a critical use-of-deadly-force situation than the average gun-carrying citizen. Any law abiding citizen who lawfully carries a gun knows how grave and sober a thing it is and what is at stake if they are required to use it. Even if you are absolutely justified in shooting, it typically costs you a minimum of $50,000 in legal expenses to shoot someone.

You are engaging the fallacy of composition again by intimating that because one member of the class A has characteristics B, C, and D that therefore all members of the class A have all those characteristics. This is not the case.

You're not really engaging with this part of what I said - which is in fact, the whole of what I said. Instead you've resorted to personal jibes and denigration, and while creating an interesting story about my character and motivation might seem to justify your self-righteous ire, it is nonetheless just that; a story you're telling yourself and others to avoid a very simple point: everyone is safer among an unarmed society.

Strawman argument. Is everyone safer in an "unarmed society?" Of course. But the pertinent question is "Does an unarmed society exist, or has it ever existed in human history anywhere on the planet?" The answer to that question is obviously "no, there is not." Moreover there never will be. All societies are armed. It is a function of human nature and behavior that cannot be avoided. The pertinent question is, "In an armed society, who holds the tactical advantage, the criminals or the law-abiding citizens?" In your case it's the criminals. In my case, it's me.

So who or what am I paranoid about and/or mistrusting of exactly? If you don't think people are stupid (act without forethought) when they're enraged please offer some counter point worth discussing. If you disagree that people are demonstrably less inclined to cause each other harm when it involves making direct physical contact with another person then again, please feel free to offer some explanation. Don't forget that the context here is a no-guns scenario.

Well, the obvious implication of your statement is that everyone should be disqualified from possessing arms merely because some of them may from time to time act stupidly when enraged.

Yes, because the harm they do is disproportionate to any claim to a right of possession.

Now you're making a strawman argument about "possession." The only "possession" I'm discussing here is the right to continued possession of life and health of the victim. His right to continue to live unharmed far outweighs any right his attacker might claim to freedom from the threat of harm or death.

And while I did suggest that the general population at large should be unarmed i dispute your attempt to trivialise and dismiss the idea out of hand because i) you did ask, and ii) the apparent 'mere-ness' of the reason should not be so quickly or glibly decoupled from the context of the discussion or the question asked. Such as...

... This of course ignores the obvious fact that when some individual does so, it is in the best interests of those who are the potential victims of enraged stupidity and violence to have the necessary tools to defend against such harms.

... where you imply that possession of a personal firearm is a kind of socially-benign and selfless act which benefits all, and that a gun is a 'necessary tool' even in the context of an unarmed population!

I don't imply it, I state it categorically as an obvious and logical truth. The carrying of personal firearms by law-abiding citizens is much more than socially benign, it is of great social benefit to everyone, as is consistently demonstrated in the US by the dramatic drops in violent crime in places where doing so is legal, versus the increasing violent crime rates in places where it is not legal.

Since no population is ever "unarmed" a gun is a "necessary tool" in tipping the tactical balance in favor of the law abiding by virtue of its extreme effectiveness at both deterring, preventing and putting a stop to violent crime.

Why, in the context of an unarmed population, where the ability for anyone to try and kill you from more than an arms length away is limited, do you think you'llo need a firearm in your toolbox? Oh yeah, because you can't imagine yourself without one, and...

Because no population is ever unarmed. Ever. Not in all of human history. Not in all of human pre-history. And there never will be an unarmed human population anywhere on earth unless they are all dead. That's a simple fact of physics and biology. You are falsely presuming that "unarmed" means "without guns," but the fact is that almost anything within your arm's reach can be used as a deadly or harmful weapon, including the things permanently attached to the ends of your arms and legs. Therefore your argument about "unarmed" societies is invalid from the first premise. There is no such thing, and therefore your argument is false.

Because the enraged stupid can always find or create lethal weapons from almost any object at hand, it behooves those who are potential victims to prepare themselves with superior arms with which to deter, deflect or prevent such harms.

... you can imagine some angry person being more determined, resourceful and better tooled than you which, you say, 'behoves' you (a necessary duty, obligation, or responsibility) to think ahead, to be more determined, resourceful and tooled up still - and even as you paint a picture of premeditated action far removed the context of people acting impulsively without forethought but without guns.

Just because someone doesn't have a gun doesn't mean I won't need a gun to defend myself or others against a potentially fatal or harmful attack. That's what you do not seem to understand. If you attack me with a cricket bat, I'm going to shoot you and be justified in doing so because a cricket bat wielded as an instrument of unlawful attack is the very definition of a "deadly weapon" that authorizes me to use deadly physical force in self-defense. I intend that my tools and skills for applying lawful deadly force be superior to yours at all times. I may fail in that objective, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to strive for tactical and strategic superiority over potential attackers.

I can imagine someone sooo enraged, determined, resourceful and tooled up that they're willing to use a couple of attack helicopters on me. Should I declare an exclusion zone around my house and pop an air defence system on the roof?

Why not? It's your airspace and if someone gives you legal cause to exercise lethal force against them by attacking you with a helicopter I wouldn't presume to interfere with your absolute right to use whatever weapons would effectively and lawfully terminate that threat. I'd be very careful that you do a proper threat analysis and determine that there is in fact a threat which authorizes you to activate your air defense system before doing so however, lest you make a mistake and activate it improperly, because then you would have to be punished for your illegal act.

An imaginable threat is not a reasoned or reasonable threat,

That depends on whether it's an "imagined" threat or a genuine threat. Air attack by helicopter on your home is likely an imaginary threat, unless you're a dignitary who may be the target of terrorists, but it is neither unlawful nor immoral for you to provide those defenses if you decide you should do so. You are however required to operate them in accordance with the law. But as for having a radar-guided missile system on your roof, it's perfectly legal for you to have one, at least here in the US, so long as you meet the necessary legal requirements for installing such defensive armament.

and within the context of an unarmed population it is not reasonable to think you need to defend yourself against armed assailants.

As I said, there is no such thing as an unarmed population, much less a society free of violent unlawful attacks on innocent persons, therefore your argument is non sequitur.

And no, that does not mean that you can't take, or should not take, any other reasonable measure to keep yourself safe and secure.

I get to take whatever measures or precautions I choose to take to remain safe and secure I choose, so long as engaging those defensive measures does not violate any law. If I want to buy an armored Mercedes Benz to drive around in and hire a cadre of armed guards to precede and follow me in armored vehicles I have a perfect right to do so. If I want an air-defense missile installation on my roof, so long as I comply with the requirements of the NFA, I may install such a system. If I want to hire skilled snipers to guard my home 24/7, I can. But I'm also entirely responsible if they act outside of the law in exercising any degree of physical force, no matter how slight. You see, possessing arms and using them are two entirely different things. You falsely presume that possessing such arms leads inevitably to the use of those arms, and moreover you falsely presume that such deployment will be either unlawful or unsafe for other innocent persons. But our laws address that quite nicely be holding me personally liable for improper use of my arms. And until I do use them improperly, it's my right to possess them and to keep them available for immediate defense, regardless of how unlikely or improbable you might think my threat analysis is.

You do not get to determine my self-defense planning or preparation. Your paranoid fear of my being armed does not give you license to interfere with my ability to so prepare and plan. Unless and until I harm someone unlawfully, my right to personal safety trumps your vacuous fears.

It appears that you assume that because it is possible for any person to become stupidly enraged, that therefore everyone will become stupidly enraged, evidently at unpredictable random intervals, and thus cannot be trusted to carry defensive arms under any circumstances. Facts, however, show this to be ridiculously untrue and therefore I conclude it's a manifestation of your fundamental paranoia of others.

These assumptions are your own making and cannot be reasonably inferred from the two very clear sentences I posted on the matter.

Except that I did in fact reasonably and rationally infer them from your statements.

Rather than saying that every enraged person is a danger I said that angry people often act without thinking ahead.

Yes, they do, which makes it all the more appropriate that I remain prepared to defend myself and others against such harmful impulsive acts.

In such a circumstance people are demonstrably less inclined to act impulsively to cause each other harm if it involves making direct physical contact.

I always prefer my criminal assailants to be unarmed, but unfortunately they aren't. Ever. Therefore it is in my best interests to be better-armed, better prepared and better-trained than they are, so that my defensive actions will be effective.

Remove the potentials for killing someone impulsively without touching them and you remove the opportunity for that to take place.

Indeed. But since there is no way to accomplish this, anywhere on earth, the rational alternative is to give potential victims defensive tools that create, at a minimum, force parity and ideally force superiority over any potential assailant.

Yeah, I know that's not good enough for you, because you can still imagine someone with a knife, or a pipe, or bigger muscles, sharper reflexes, and worse attitude wanting to kill you, which says more about your cultural setting than you think.

Interestingly, I'm aware of the fact that people get attacked, hurt, disabled, permanently maimed and killed by such attackers everywhere on earth, in every culture and every society that exists or has ever existed. You do not appear to be cognizant of that obvious fact.

It suggest that you find yourself in a society where you are exposed a high rate indiscriminate and possibly extreme or lethal violence.

Everybody lives in a society with lethal violence potential. Everyone, everywhere, all the time.

If you're going to suggest that it's unreasonable of me to act as if nobody to going to try and kill me then i) perhaps you need a respite period away from your particular cultural setting, and ii) don't waste your breath.

You may act in any way you please, that's entirely your right. And you will perforce suffer the consequences of your risk analysis, for better or worse. What is not your right is to make a risk analysis for others or attempt to control how others prepare themselves against the potential of sudden and unexpected criminal violence.

Now who's freely applying the tar brush?

I think I specified "you" in my statement.

This is exactly why I suggested you spend some time in a demilitarised part of the world.

Been there, done that. I spent last summer in a "demilitarized" part of the US: New York City, where I was prohibited from carrying my pistol by law, which placed me at constant risk from attack by the criminals who illegally carry their pistols. Or their cricket bats. Or their rocks. Or their broken beer bottles and knives.

Guns only seem a 'necessary tool' within a gun culture, and it demonstrates the limitations of your own thinking to presume that one is somehow rendered unduly vulnerable and defenceless by their absence.

Guns aren't a necessary tool until one needs a gun in a situation where a gun is the best option for preventing harm or is the only option for defending one's life. The problem is that such events are highly unpredictable (just ask the victims of Port Arthur) and do in fact occur in every place on earth at random times in random locations, so the rational thing to do is to remain prepared for effective personal defense at all times. Since my being prepared for effective personal defense does not increase the risks of violent criminal attack to others, because I am not a violent criminal, there is no reason for you or anyone else to fear, much less interfere with those preparations.

The underlying question in the 'gun debate' devolve around the undoubted sense of personal power and authority a personal firearm lends any individual (until they meet a person with a big gun and a badder attitude of course) and, perhaps more importantly, the nature of the relationship between those with guns and those without. I doubt whether these question can ever find traction while people are so determined to parrot tired fables and canards about how possessing the ability to remotely kill others makes a society less violent and more stable and/or free.

Your irrational fear is not justification for placing me at unnecessary risk by forcibly disarming me. Your argument shows once again that the root issue here is your irrational fear of your fellow law-abiding community members, not a rational assessment of the risks of an armed citizenry. You demonstrate an extremely unhealthy mistrust of your fellow citizens, so unhealthy that it causes you to attempt to infringe on their rights to personal safety using the expedient of the law. That is a grossly immoral and unethical act and it makes you personally morally liable for every injury and death that could have been avoided if you had not participated in disarming your fellow citizens.

[Seth]

Another guy who needed a gun and didn't have one...

Crime
18-Year-Old Bicycle Rider in Critical Condition With Skull Fracture, May Lose Hand After Late-Night Machete Attack
Jun. 21, 2015 5:12pm Dave Urbanski
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An 18-year-old bicycle rider was in critical condition and may lose a hand after four men used a machete to attack him in the street early Sunday, Los Angeles police said.

After the group exited a green, four-door sedan, they approached the bike rider about 12:35 a.m. and one assailant began hacking the victim with a machete, KTLA-TV reported.

The victim lost a lot of blood after getting wounded in the head and hand, Sgt. Melvin Gamble of the Los Angeles Police Department told KTLA. Doctors may need to amputate the injured hand, the station said, adding that the victim also suffered a fractured skull.

The victim was able to run a few blocks to the intersection of 11th and Burlington, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A KTLA reporter added on camera that the attackers took cash from the victim; the station said they also took the bike and fled the scene.

Investigators have not released suspect descriptions or the victim’s identity, but KTLA reported that the attack was likely gang-related.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Your irrational fear is not justification for placing me at unnecessary risk by forcibly disarming me.

What utter crap. Brian is only referring to his preference for a relatively gun-fee environment is his own country, a view shared by virtually all non US posters on this forum, with no intention of "forcibly disarming" you...

[Brian Peacock]

I can tell you're trying your best but really? I tarred nobody.

Wrong. You tarred "everyone."

Nope. You asked who shouldn't have a personal firearm, I said 'Everyone.' But still no tarring everyone with the same brush there though.

Angry people with a gun in their pocket are more liable to do more harm than angry people without.

But not everyone is angry, nor will every angry person do harm to others, whether or not they have a gun. Your statement shows paranoid fear of everyone because you falsely presume that "anger" plus "gun" will inevitably result in "more harm," which is obviously a fallacy. You also falsely presume that "angry" and "no gun" will inevitably result in less harm, which is demonstrably not the case.

I made enough qualifications to adequately communicate my thoughts on this. I did not suggest that everyone who is angry and has a gun is a danger - in fact I explicitly stated that...

A gun does away with that extra level of restraint - it offers a remote solution in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else.

...and...

Rather than saying that every enraged person is a danger I said that angry people often act without thinking ahead. In such a circumstance people are demonstrably less inclined to act impulsively to cause each other harm if it involves making direct physical contact.

Angry people do stupid things, whether armed or not, but people are demonstrably less inclined to harm others where it involves direct physical contact.

Are you saying that angry people are less inclined to engage in physical violence if they are unarmed versus being armed?

What I am saying is that in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else they are demonstrably less likely to follow through on that where it involves making direct physical contact. This is not a difficult sentence to parse.

A gun does away with that extra level of restraint - it offers a remote solution in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else.

Er, pointing a gun at someone, much less discharging it at them is as personal as it can possibly get. Only the criminally deranged place so little value on human life that they will do so at the drop of a hat. The facts show that police officers are eleven times more likely to shoot someone in a critical use-of-deadly-force situation than the average gun-carrying citizen. Any law abiding citizen who lawfully carries a gun knows how grave and sober a thing it is and what is at stake if they are required to use it. Even if you are absolutely justified in shooting, it typically costs you a minimum of $50,000 in legal expenses to shoot someone.

Relevance? Do those acting impulsively tally up the cost before or after the fact?

You are engaging the fallacy of composition again by intimating that because one member of the class A has characteristics B, C, and D that therefore all members of the class A have all those characteristics. This is not the case.

But not only is the 'composition' your own it does not even reflect what I said. I did not suggest that those in possession of a firearm are wanton in brandishing it nor that gun owners (let alone police officers) are automatically more reckless individuals. I said that in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else possession of a personal firearm provides a go-to solution not available to an unarmed individual. Also, in those kinds of circumstances people are demonstrably less likely to act on those inclinations if-and-when it involves making direct physical contact. I'm sorry to have to keep repeating this, but it needs to be made clear, and it really should be acknowledged if we're to have an honest discussion about this.

You're not really engaging with this part of what I said - which is in fact, the whole of what I said. Instead you've resorted to personal jibes and denigration, and while creating an interesting story about my character and motivation might seem to justify your self-righteous ire, it is nonetheless just that; a story you're telling yourself and others to avoid a very simple point: everyone is safer among an unarmed society.

Strawman argument. Is everyone safer in an "unarmed society?" Of course. But the pertinent question is "Does an unarmed society exist, or has it ever existed in human history anywhere on the planet?" The answer to that question is obviously "no, there is not." Moreover there never will be. All societies are armed. It is a function of human nature and behavior that cannot be avoided. The pertinent question is, "In an armed society, who holds the tactical advantage, the criminals or the law-abiding citizens?" In your case it's the criminals. In my case, it's me.

Firstly, even most criminals are unarmed (my meaning, without guns) in my unarmed society, and while the criminal intent of an individual might act as a disinhibitor to violence the balance of power (as you might put it) between me and any potential unarmed assailant is not as tightly delineated as your argument would have have it. That's a red herring all the way through.

Secondly, you are misrepresenting my point again by conflating 'weapons' and 'guns'. Fists and feet can be a weapon and nearly all of us have two each of those. A tongue can be a weapon and we nearly all use them as such at some point. When I refer to an unarmed society I am obviously referring to firearms because this is the context of the discussion.

That those on the fringe of society might not accept or adhere to the common customs of law is not the issue, for lawlessness does not in itself legitimise the use of firearms, and whether a society is, or can be, held to ransom by those who seek to operate outside of the law is a different matter for a different day.

The obvious implication of your statement is that everyone should be disqualified from possessing arms merely because some of them may from time to time act stupidly when enraged.

Yes, because the harm they do is disproportionate to any claim to a right of possession.

Now you're making a strawman argument about "possession." The only "possession" I'm discussing here is the right to continued possession of life and health of the victim. His right to continue to live unharmed far outweighs any right his attacker might claim to freedom from the threat of harm or death.

Blatantly shifting the goalposts much? The 'possession' you explicitly mentioned here was "possessing arms" not "the possession of life and health" you now claim. While it is clear that you feel the latter is dependent on the former it is patently obvious that one only needs to secure life and health by the possession and use of firearms in a setting where firearms are a serious threat to life and health. Indeed, as you said yourself...

Is everyone safer in an "unarmed society?" Of course.

So do the math.

Also, there's no strawman argument from me either, I suggested that the harm that personal firearms do (to individuals and society) is disproportionate to any claim to a right of possession (of firearms). It's tiresome that I have to resort to this level of petty qualification in the face of your equally tiresome misrepresentation, which does neither you nor your argument any favours.

And while I did suggest that the general population at large should be unarmed i dispute your attempt to trivialise and dismiss the idea out of hand because i) you did ask, and ii) the apparent 'mere-ness' of the reason should not be so quickly or glibly decoupled from the context of the discussion or the question asked. Such as...

... This of course ignores the obvious fact that when some individual does so, it is in the best interests of those who are the potential victims of enraged stupidity and violence to have the necessary tools to defend against such harms.

... where you imply that possession of a personal firearm is a kind of socially-benign and selfless act which benefits all, and that a gun is a 'necessary tool' even in the context of an unarmed population!

I don't imply it, I state it categorically as an obvious and logical truth. The carrying of personal firearms by law-abiding citizens is much more than socially benign, it is of great social benefit to everyone, as is consistently demonstrated in the US by the dramatic drops in violent crime in places where doing so is legal, versus the increasing violent crime rates in places where it is not legal.

Since no population is ever "unarmed" a gun is a "necessary tool" in tipping the tactical balance in favor of the law abiding by virtue of its extreme effectiveness at both deterring, preventing and putting a stop to violent crime.

You point is not strengthened by iteration I'm afraid. I doubt that you will recognise the irony in suggesting that the threat of violence reduces threats of violence, but that is all your are saying here. Perhaps you can develop this a little further? Does the use of violence reduce the level of violence, and if so how exactly?

Why, in the context of an unarmed population, where the ability for anyone to try and kill you from more than an arms length away is limited, do you think you'llo need a firearm in your toolbox? Oh yeah, because you can't imagine yourself without one, and...

Because no population is ever unarmed....

From this point on you're relying on a previous misrepresentation and mischaracterisation : an equivocation on 'unarmed'.

... Ever. Not in all of human history. Not in all of human pre-history. And there never will be an unarmed human population anywhere on earth unless they are all dead. That's a simple fact of physics and biology. You are falsely presuming that "unarmed" means "without guns," but the fact is that almost anything within your arm's reach can be used as a deadly or harmful weapon, including the things permanently attached to the ends of your arms and legs. Therefore your argument about "unarmed" societies is invalid from the first premise. There is no such thing, and therefore your argument is false.

Because the enraged stupid can always find or create lethal weapons from almost any object at hand, it behooves those who are potential victims to prepare themselves with superior arms with which to deter, deflect or prevent such harms.

... you can imagine some angry person being more determined, resourceful and better tooled than you which, you say, 'behoves' you (a necessary duty, obligation, or responsibility) to think ahead, to be more determined, resourceful and tooled up still - and even as you paint a picture of premeditated action far removed the context of people acting impulsively without forethought but without guns.

Just because someone doesn't have a gun doesn't mean I won't need a gun to defend myself or others against a potentially fatal or harmful attack.

So you say. You feel justified in using a gun because you are living within a social context where guns are both legal and apparently necessary. However, you are not justified in using it on an unarmed individual and nor are you or anyone else infallible in determining any given situation, let alone the future. While I understand that being genuinely afeared for your life seems to offer some justification for actually using a firearm this invariably cast gun use as an emotional act, which again is prone to certain fallibilities. In the end, your justification for possessing a personal firearm rests wholly on the fact that it is legal for your to do so, but that in itself does not legitimise its use. It also seems reasonable that if-and-when someone threatens a use of violence, lethal or otherwise, one still has to decouple the threat of violence from the use of violence to determine if a preemptive act of violence is a necessary or appropriate response. in other words, punching someone who has threatened to punch you can still be an assault just as killing someone who threatened to kill you can still be murder. The overt lethal-ness of firearms means that using them and trying to figure out if that was justified after the fact is problematic, particularly in the circumstances your describe, where an emotional response to a perceived threat is taken as a legitimising factor in the use of lethal force. Angry, enraged, and/or fearful people in possession of overtly lethal weapons does not seem to be a good recipe for discouraging the general use of violence in society, or even a recipe for a stable society, imo. To a great extent the mere possession of overtly lethal weapons acts as the primary legitimising factor in their use. Or to put it another way, the firearm authorises its own use - you don't argue with a gun because a gun is such an effective argument terminator.

That's what you do not seem to understand. If you attack me with a cricket bat, I'm going to shoot you and be justified in doing so because a cricket bat wielded as an instrument of unlawful attack is the very definition of a "deadly weapon" that authorizes me to use deadly physical force in self-defense. I intend that my tools and skills for applying lawful deadly force be superior to yours at all times. I may fail in that objective, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to strive for tactical and strategic superiority over potential attackers.

There is no failure to understand here - I simply do not accept your general justifications for the ownership of personal firearms or their use.

I can imagine someone sooo enraged, determined, resourceful and tooled up that they're willing to use a couple of attack helicopters on me. Should I declare an exclusion zone around my house and pop an air defence system on the roof?

Why not?

Because this leads to a tooled up, shit society running on fear and paranoia.

It's your airspace and if someone gives you legal cause to exercise lethal force against them by attacking you with a helicopter I wouldn't presume to interfere with your absolute right to use whatever weapons would effectively and lawfully terminate that threat. I'd be very careful that you do a proper threat analysis and determine that there is in fact a threat which authorizes you to activate your air defense system before doing so however, lest you make a mistake and activate it improperly, because then you would have to be punished for your illegal act.

Indeed. See my points above.

An imaginable threat is not a reasoned or reasonable threat,

That depends on whether it's an "imagined" threat or a genuine threat.

Well, as I made explicit reference to an 'imagined threat' and not a 'genuine threat' we can probably take it to mean exactly what it said eh?

Air attack by helicopter on your home is likely an imaginary threat, unless you're a dignitary who may be the target of terrorists, but it is neither unlawful nor immoral for you to provide those defenses if you decide you should do so. You are however required to operate them in accordance with the law.

Ground attack by an armed assault teams or a mugger with a hand gun are also mostly likely to be an imaginary threat in an unarmed society, like the one in which I'm lucky to find myself.

But as for having a radar-guided missile system on your roof, it's perfectly legal for you to have one, at least here in the US, so long as you meet the necessary legal requirements for installing such defensive armament.

See my previous point.

.. and within the context of an unarmed population it is not reasonable to think you need to defend yourself against armed assailants.

As I said, there is no such thing as an unarmed population...

And as I said, that follows from your equivocations on 'unarmed'

... much less a society free of violent unlawful attacks on innocent persons, therefore your argument is non sequitur.

Please point out where I said that there exists any society which is "free of violent unlawful attacks on innocent persons."

And no, that does not mean that you can't take, or should not take, any other reasonable measure to keep yourself safe and secure.

I get to take whatever measures or precautions I choose to take to remain safe and secure I choose, so long as engaging those defensive measures does not violate any law.

In the context of an unarmed society (my meaning of unarmed, a society where the possession of personal firearms is not permitted) even your level of paranoia and fear about the likelihood and ability of others to kill you could not be brought to bear in justifications for taking 'whatever measures or precautions your choose to take'. In my particular demilitarised society the kind of private militia you describe below is not only be outlawed but would also be seen for what it is - a unwarranted threat of violence in its own right.

... If I want to buy an armored Mercedes Benz to drive around in and hire a cadre of armed guards to precede and follow me in armored vehicles I have a perfect right to do so. If I want an air-defense missile installation on my roof, so long as I comply with the requirements of the NFA, I may install such a system. If I want to hire skilled snipers to guard my home 24/7, I can. But I'm also entirely responsible if they act outside of the law in exercising any degree of physical force, no matter how slight. You see, possessing arms and using them are two entirely different things. You falsely presume that possessing such arms leads inevitably to the use of those arms, and moreover you falsely presume that such deployment will be either unlawful or unsafe for other innocent persons. But our laws address that quite nicely be holding me personally liable for improper use of my arms. And until I do use them improperly, it's my right to possess them and to keep them available for immediate defense, regardless of how unlikely or improbable you might think my threat analysis is.

You do not get to determine my self-defense planning or preparation...

I am not determining your self-defence plans or preparations, I'm suggesting that the ability to make certain specific perperations be legally curtailed.

... Your paranoid fear of my being armed does not give you license to interfere with my ability to so prepare and plan. Unless and until I harm someone unlawfully, my right to personal safety trumps your vacuous fears.

That, my dear friend, is simply ridiculousness incarnate.

It appears that you assume that because it is possible for any person to become stupidly enraged, that therefore everyone will become stupidly enraged, evidently at unpredictable random intervals, and thus cannot be trusted to carry defensive arms under any circumstances. Facts, however, show this to be ridiculously untrue and therefore I conclude it's a manifestation of your fundamental paranoia of others.

These assumptions are your own making and cannot be reasonably inferred from the two very clear sentences I posted on the matter.

Except that I did in fact reasonably and rationally infer them from your statements.

My challenge to the apparent reasonableness and rationally of your inferences stands, as outlined in my previous post cited below.

Rather than saying that every enraged person is a danger I said that angry people often act without thinking ahead.

Yes, they do, which makes it all the more appropriate that I remain prepared to defend myself and others against such harmful impulsive acts.

As I have already pointed out, in an unarmed society one does not forsake any rights or obligations in that regard.

In such a circumstance people are demonstrably less inclined to act impulsively to cause each other harm if it involves making direct physical contact.

I always prefer my criminal assailants to be unarmed [equivocation on 'unarmed' again, BP], but unfortunately they aren't. Ever. Therefore it is in my best interests to be better-armed, better prepared and better-trained than they are, so that my defensive actions will be effective.

In the context of an unarmed society (my meaning, no guns) one does not forsake any rights or obligations to effectively defend either oneself or others. How many times have you been criminally assialed btw?

Remove the potentials for killing someone impulsively without touching them and you remove the opportunity for that to take place.

Indeed. But since there is no way to accomplish this, anywhere on earth, the rational alternative is to give potential victims defensive tools that create, at a minimum, force parity and ideally force superiority over any potential assailant.

I fear you are confusing your particular social norms for broader normatives that apply in all other cases. The rest of the world is not the US just better food and TV you know - some of our TV is shit as well you know.

Yeah, I know that's not good enough for you, because you can still imagine someone with a knife, or a pipe, or bigger muscles, sharper reflexes, and worse attitude wanting to kill you, which says more about your cultural setting than you think.

Interestingly, I'm aware of the fact that people get attacked, hurt, disabled, permanently maimed and killed by such attackers everywhere on earth, in every culture and every society that exists or has ever existed. You do not appear to be cognizant of that obvious fact.

My cognisance is not really the issue here. Look, I get that you think that the possibility of being attacked, hurt, disabled, maimed or killed justifies an armed (my meaning, having guns) populace, but this only reiterates your point, not bolster it, nor does it engage with what I said, which is that in circumstances where someone feels inclined to harm someone else a gun is a disproportionate actualiser, the wider possession of which has consequences for society at large. It is those consequences which you are working so hard to ignore and abrogate.

It suggest that you find yourself in a society where you are exposed a high rate of indiscriminate and possibly extreme or lethal violence.

Everybody lives in a society with lethal violence potential. Everyone, everywhere, all the time.

It suggests to me that you find yourself in a society where people are exposed a high rate of indiscriminate and possibly extreme or lethal violence, but you cannot reasonably infer that I think an absence of guns equals an absence of threats of or actual violence, can you(?) Back to the plot please.

If you're going to suggest that it's unreasonable of me to act as if nobody to going to try and kill me then i) perhaps you need a respite period away from your particular cultural setting, and ii) don't waste your breath.

You may act in any way you please, that's entirely your right. And you will perforce suffer the consequences of your risk analysis, for better or worse. What is not your right is to make a risk analysis for others or attempt to control how others prepare themselves against the potential of sudden and unexpected criminal violence.

Now who's freely applying the tar brush?

I think I specified "you" in my statement.

This is exactly why I suggested you spend some time in a demilitarised part of the world.

Been there, done that. I spent last summer in a "demilitarized" part of the US: New York City, where I was prohibited from carrying my pistol by law, which placed me at constant risk from attack by the criminals who illegally carry their pistols. Or their cricket bats. Or their rocks. Or their broken beer bottles and knives.

And in that situation of 'constant risk' how many times did you lament no having your pistole on you because were you threatened with a gun, a cricket bat, a rock, a broken beer bottle, or a knife? Feel free to provide a table if it helps!

Guns only seem a 'necessary tool' within a gun culture, and it demonstrates the limitations of your own thinking to presume that one is somehow rendered unduly vulnerable and defenceless by their absence.

Guns aren't a necessary tool until one needs a gun in a situation where a gun is the best option for preventing harm or is the only option for defending one's life. The problem is that such events are highly unpredictable (just ask the victims of Port Arthur) and do in fact occur in every place on earth at random times in random locations, so the rational thing to do is to remain prepared for effective personal defense at all times. Since my being prepared for effective personal defense does not increase the risks of violent criminal attack to others, because I am not a violent criminal, there is no reason for you or anyone else to fear, much less interfere with those preparations.

It is the inappropriate use of personal firearms in inappropriate circumstances which concerns me - I've already qualified this above.

The underlying question in the 'gun debate' devolve around the undoubted sense of personal power and authority a personal firearm lends any individual (until they meet a person with a big gun and a badder attitude of course) and, perhaps more importantly, the nature of the relationship between those with guns and those without. I doubt whether these question can ever find traction while people are so determined to parrot tired fables and canards about how possessing the ability to remotely kill others makes a society less violent and more stable and/or free.

Your irrational fear is not justification...

Your cheap shot through the misrepresentation of the word 'fear' here is uncalled for..

... for placing me at unnecessary risk by forcibly disarming me. Your argument shows once again that the root issue here is your irrational fear of your fellow law-abiding community members, not a rational assessment of the risks of an armed citizenry. You demonstrate an extremely unhealthy mistrust of your fellow citizens, so unhealthy that it causes you to attempt to infringe on their rights to personal safety using the expedient of the law. That is a grossly immoral and unethical act and it makes you personally morally liable for every injury and death that could have been avoided if you had not participated in disarming your fellow citizens.

Please point out where I said that I wished to forcibly disarm you.

This speaks directly to that sense of personal power and authority that personal firearms lend an individual, to such an extent that even discussing the possibility of a society without guns seems to inculcate in them an overwhelming sense of person powerlessness and vulnerability. Unfortunately this makes for a highly emotionally charged arena and means that what passes for the 'gun debate' tends to become rather 'me-centered' on the gun advocate, and in that wider questions are lost in a lather of what-if scenarios to which the gun seems the only 'reasonable' solution.

[Seth]

I can tell you're trying your best but really? I tarred nobody.

Wrong. You tarred "everyone."

Nope. You asked who shouldn't have a personal firearm, I said 'Everyone.' But still no tarring everyone with the same brush there though.

Of course you did by implying that "everyone" constitutes a danger if armed because they might get angry.

I made enough qualifications to adequately communicate my thoughts on this. I did not suggest that everyone who is angry and has a gun is a danger - in fact I explicitly stated that...

A gun does away with that extra level of restraint - it offers a remote solution in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else.

...and...

Rather than saying that every enraged person is a danger I said that angry people often act without thinking ahead. In such a circumstance people are demonstrably less inclined to act impulsively to cause each other harm if it involves making direct physical contact.

The necessary inference is therefore that because someone who is angry might feel inclined to harm someone, and that disarming that person makes them "demonstrably less inclined" (citation needed) to "act impulsively" because to do so would require "direct physical contact" and that therefore universally barring all persons from possessing weapons that may apply force at a distance is a rational response. It's not. It's tarring everyone with the same brush of suspicion that they cannot control themselves and are more likely to harm someone impulsively if they possess a gun than if they don't. There is no credible evidence that this assertion is factual.

Angry people do stupid things, whether armed or not, but people are demonstrably less inclined to harm others where it involves direct physical contact.

Are you saying that angry people are less inclined to engage in physical violence if they are unarmed versus being armed?

What I am saying is that in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else they are demonstrably less likely to follow through on that where it involves making direct physical contact. This is not a difficult sentence to parse.

You have failed to demonstrate this assertion. You have also failed to explain how shooting someone is anything other than "direct physical contact."

A gun does away with that extra level of restraint - it offers a remote solution in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else.

Er, pointing a gun at someone, much less discharging it at them is as personal as it can possibly get. Only the criminally deranged place so little value on human life that they will do so at the drop of a hat. The facts show that police officers are eleven times more likely to shoot someone in a critical use-of-deadly-force situation than the average gun-carrying citizen. Any law abiding citizen who lawfully carries a gun knows how grave and sober a thing it is and what is at stake if they are required to use it. Even if you are absolutely justified in shooting, it typically costs you a minimum of $50,000 in legal expenses to shoot someone.

Relevance? Do those acting impulsively tally up the cost before or after the fact?

It's relevant to your implication that all persons are equally likely to act impulsively and therefore all persons must be disarmed in order to reduce the chances that violence will occur because a disarmed person must engage in "direct physical contact." This is a specious assertion on your part.

You are engaging the fallacy of composition again by intimating that because one member of the class A has characteristics B, C, and D that therefore all members of the class A have all those characteristics. This is not the case.

But not only is the 'composition' your own it does not even reflect what I said. I did not suggest that those in possession of a firearm are wanton in brandishing it nor that gun owners (let alone police officers) are automatically more reckless individuals. I said that in circumstances where someone feels inclined, however transiently, to harm someone else possession of a personal firearm provides a go-to solution not available to an unarmed individual.

Thank you for stating the obvious, Mr. Obvious. Now please explain what that has to do with the likelihood that any particular individual will make use of that "go-to solution" inappropriately. I infer from your statement that you think that it is appropriate to disarm everyone on the rather weak theory that doing so will keep one or more of them from "transiently" applying an inappropriate and illegal "go-to solution." The rational inference taken from this is that you mistrust everyone and consider everyone a threat to the extent that everyone must be disarmed in order to avoid even the potential for one of them to act inappropriately and illegally with a firearm. The facts do not support this hypothesis at all.

Also, in those kinds of circumstances people are demonstrably less likely to act on those inclinations if-and-when it involves making direct physical contact. I'm sorry to have to keep repeating this, but it needs to be made clear, and it really should be acknowledged if we're to have an honest discussion about this.

So if I agree arguendo that not being armed lessens the chances that a particular individual will engage in violence against another, what does that have to do with anything other than your fear of your fellow citizens? The fact that disarming someone may reduce the chances of that person committing a violent crime does nothing whatever to ameliorate or prevent those who choose to use physical violence anyway from doing so while victimizing an innocent person whom you have disarmed and therefore left helpless to defend against such an attack.

This is the part of the equation that you seem to ignore. For every person with a proclivity towards criminal violence you disarm by disarming the entirely of the public, there are many whom you doom to victimization, harm and even death by denying them the necessary tools of self-defense. This is because those prone to criminal violence are prone to committing it repeatedly and therefore over their lifetime they may harm numerous people, all of whom have a fundamental right to defend themselves against criminal victimization.

You're throwing out the baby with the bath water here.

In the case of the US, of the 300 million guns or so in private hands, less than 0.004 percent of them are ever used in a criminal act. So you propose to eliminate the 99.996 percent of arms owned by the public who demonstrably do not succumb to this fictional momentary anger-based insanity and use their weapons unlawfully in order to try to prevent four one-thousandths of one percent of those weapons from being used inappropriately. And the number is actually much smaller, as the actual number of ordinary heretofore law-abiding armed citizens who suddenly and without explanation angrily shoot people with their legally-carried guns is vanishingly small. It's so small that it's all but impossible to accurately quantify it, but when it comes to documented CCW permittes the rate of criminal infraction of ANY kind is far below 1 percent.

So, what problem is it that you wish to actually solve by disarming everyone and what are the unintended consequences of doing so?

One of the unintended consequences is a substantial jump in crime and criminal victimization, as proven by the crime statistic comparison of US cities where CCW is lawful versus those where it is not.

So what actually happens when you disarm "everyone" is that you only disarm the law-abiding without having any effect whatsoever on armed criminals, thus increasing violent crime and victimization rather than lowering it.

You're not really engaging with this part of what I said - which is in fact, the whole of what I said. Instead you've resorted to personal jibes and denigration, and while creating an interesting story about my character and motivation might seem to justify your self-righteous ire, it is nonetheless just that; a story you're telling yourself and others to avoid a very simple point: everyone is safer among an unarmed society.

Strawman argument. Is everyone safer in an "unarmed society?" Of course. But the pertinent question is "Does an unarmed society exist, or has it ever existed in human history anywhere on the planet?" The answer to that question is obviously "no, there is not." Moreover there never will be. All societies are armed. It is a function of human nature and behavior that cannot be avoided. The pertinent question is, "In an armed society, who holds the tactical advantage, the criminals or the law-abiding citizens?" In your case it's the criminals. In my case, it's me.

Firstly, even most criminals are unarmed (my meaning, without guns) in my unarmed society,

Your "meaning" is an obfuscation. You, like most anti-gun advocates, choose to ignore the simple fact that people are injured and killed by criminals with all sorts of weapons not including firearms. You do so in order to try and skew the perceptions of readers by discounting the harm done by those without firearms who might be dissuaded or stopped from victimizing someone if only their intended victim was adequately armed. This is an intellectually bankrupt evasion of the issue.

and while the criminal intent of an individual might act as a disinhibitor to violence the balance of power (as you might put it) between me and any potential unarmed assailant is not as tightly delineated as your argument would have have it. That's a red herring all the way through.

The factual evidence in the US demonstrates that you are wrong. Violent crime drops an average of 15% in the first year after concealed carry is authorized in a jurisdiction, and so far continues to go down every year in almost all jurisdictions where CCW is lawful. This clearly indicates that an armed pool of victims is a strong deterrent to violent criminals. Moreover, surveys of convicted criminals show that the potential that their intended victim might be armed is of prime importance to a majority of violent criminals, and that they take pains to victimize those who are less likely to be armed.

Secondly, you are misrepresenting my point again by conflating 'weapons' and 'guns'. Fists and feet can be a weapon and nearly all of us have two each of those. A tongue can be a weapon and we nearly all use them as such at some point. When I refer to an unarmed society I am obviously referring to firearms because this is the context of the discussion.

You are misrepresenting the argument by trying to artificially limit the discussion of criminal violence and victimization and the attendant need and right of potential victims to be armed for self-defense against such attacks to only those attacks where the criminal uses a gun.

That those on the fringe of society might not accept or adhere to the common customs of law is not the issue, for lawlessness does not in itself legitimise the use of firearms, and whether a society is, or can be, held to ransom by those who seek to operate outside of the law is a different matter for a different day.

I disagree. Lawlessness is precisely the issue and it is the lawlessness of criminals that does in fact justify the carrying of arms by the law-abiding individual for self-defense.

The obvious implication of your statement is that everyone should be disqualified from possessing arms merely because some of them may from time to time act stupidly when enraged.

Yes, because the harm they do is disproportionate to any claim to a right of possession.

Now you're making a strawman argument about "possession." The only "possession" I'm discussing here is the right to continued possession of life and health of the victim. His right to continue to live unharmed far outweighs any right his attacker might claim to freedom from the threat of harm or death.

Blatantly shifting the goalposts much? The 'possession' you explicitly mentioned here was "possessing arms" not "the possession of life and health" you now claim. While it is clear that you feel the latter is dependent on the former it is patently obvious that one only needs to secure life and health by the possession and use of firearms in a setting where firearms are a serious threat to life and health. Indeed, as you said yourself...

Is everyone safer in an "unarmed society?" Of course.

So do the math.

Strawman argument. As I said, there is no such thing as an "unarmed society." Also, I've been very clear to state that ANY kind of violent threat to life or health of the innocent justifies the carrying of defensive arms, whether the criminal has a gun or not.

Also, there's no strawman argument from me either, I suggested that the harm that personal firearms do (to individuals and society) is disproportionate to any claim to a right of possession (of firearms).

And yet you cannot support this argument.

It's tiresome that I have to resort to this level of petty qualification in the face of your equally tiresome misrepresentation, which does neither you nor your argument any favours.

The devil is in the details, as always. Therefore I must be precise, perforce, because anti-gun advocates have a way of pettifogging any imprecision in my arguments.

And while I did suggest that the general population at large should be unarmed i dispute your attempt to trivialise and dismiss the idea out of hand because i) you did ask, and ii) the apparent 'mere-ness' of the reason should not be so quickly or glibly decoupled from the context of the discussion or the question asked. Such as...

... This of course ignores the obvious fact that when some individual does so, it is in the best interests of those who are the potential victims of enraged stupidity and violence to have the necessary tools to defend against such harms.

... where you imply that possession of a personal firearm is a kind of socially-benign and selfless act which benefits all, and that a gun is a 'necessary tool' even in the context of an unarmed population!

I don't imply it, I state it categorically as an obvious and logical truth. The carrying of personal firearms by law-abiding citizens is much more than socially benign, it is of great social benefit to everyone, as is consistently demonstrated in the US by the dramatic drops in violent crime in places where doing so is legal, versus the increasing violent crime rates in places where it is not legal.

Since no population is ever "unarmed" a gun is a "necessary tool" in tipping the tactical balance in favor of the law abiding by virtue of its extreme effectiveness at both deterring, preventing and putting a stop to violent crime.

You point is not strengthened by iteration I'm afraid. I doubt that you will recognise the irony in suggesting that the threat of violence reduces threats of violence, but that is all your are saying here.

That is precisely what I am saying. There is no irony in suggesting that criminals don't want to be the victims of defensive "violence" and therefore may avoid situations where there is an increased risk of that happening. It's the whole point of widespread concealed carry. And it works.

You falsely imply that "violence" is always a bad thing and you engage in fallacious moral equivalency by suggesting that the "violence" used by a victim facing a violent criminal is of the same moral character and value as the violence being perpetrated against him. This is not the case. We maintain military forces precisely so that the potential for violence dissuades belligerent nations from using violence against us. Criminal violence and the use of force in self-defense are not moral equivalents.

Perhaps you can develop this a little further? Does the use of violence reduce the level of violence, and if so how exactly?

Ibid.

Why, in the context of an unarmed population, where the ability for anyone to try and kill you from more than an arms length away is limited, do you think you'llo need a firearm in your toolbox? Oh yeah, because you can't imagine yourself without one, and...

Because no population is ever unarmed....

From this point on you're relying on a previous misrepresentation and mischaracterisation : an equivocation on 'unarmed'.

No, it is you who is equivocating by attempting to limit the consideration of non-gun violence in the calculus of the necessary defensive tools which must be available to the potential victim. It doesn't matter to the victim whether he was beaten to death with a cricket bat, a shoe or was shot, he's still dead, which he has a perfect and unassailable right not to be. The use of a gun in self-defense is currently the most effective way to prevent harm to innocent victims regardless of the mechanism of injury being used by the attacker. Therefore, trying to evade the issue by attempting to discount the danger of non-gun violence is pettifoggery.

... Ever. Not in all of human history. Not in all of human pre-history. And there never will be an unarmed human population anywhere on earth unless they are all dead. That's a simple fact of physics and biology. You are falsely presuming that "unarmed" means "without guns," but the fact is that almost anything within your arm's reach can be used as a deadly or harmful weapon, including the things permanently attached to the ends of your arms and legs. Therefore your argument about "unarmed" societies is invalid from the first premise. There is no such thing, and therefore your argument is false.

How...erudite.

Just because someone doesn't have a gun doesn't mean I won't need a gun to defend myself or others against a potentially fatal or harmful attack.

So you say.

Indeed. That's simply a fact.

You feel justified in using a gun because you are living within a social context where guns are both legal and apparently necessary.

No, I am absolutely justified in using a gun for self-defense in any social context and in any place on earth where doing so is required to effectively defend myself against criminal violence. That a particular society or culture may forbid me from having a firearm is utterly irrelevant. The right to use deadly force under certain circumstances exists in virtually every nation on earth. The tool for applying a lawful use of deadly force is not really relevant to that fact.

However, you are not justified in using it on an unarmed individual and nor are you or anyone else infallible in determining any given situation, let alone the future.

Evasion. No person is ever "unarmed." The requirement is that I may only use my gun (or any other lethal weapon) for self defense under very specific circumstances. Specifically, I may only use lethal force (with a gun or any other weapon) if I reasonably believe that I, or another person, is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm and I reasonably believe that a lesser degree of force would be inadequate to prevent the harm. That is the legal standard to which all persons are subject, and our decision to use deadly force can and will be carefully scrutinized by both the police and the courts to determine if that force was applied within the bounds of the law. If not, then I face prosecution for any of a number of crimes for the misuse of deadly force.

Thus, if some 300 pound steroid-raging body-builder, or 17 year old black youth, has me pinned to the ground and is bashing my head in on the concrete sidewalk with his bare hands, I'm completely justified in shooting him as many times as is required to terminate the threat.

While I understand that being genuinely afeared for your life seems to offer some justification for actually using a firearm this invariably cast gun use as an emotional act, which again is prone to certain fallibilities.

Getting killed by a criminal is a very emotional thing to me. I'd like to avoid it, even if it costs my attacker his life.

In the end, your justification for possessing a personal firearm rests wholly on the fact that it is legal for your to do so, but that in itself does not legitimise its use.

Wrong. My justification for possessing a personal firearm rests wholly on the fact that I have a right to effectively defend myself and others against criminal violence of any nature or degree of threat and a handgun is currently the very best tool for that task. It is my right to have the very best tool possible for defense of my life, whether a particular government agency or administration thinks so or not. My right to effective self defense is not subject to popular vote. It is absolute and unalienable.

It also seems reasonable that if-and-when someone threatens a use of violence, lethal or otherwise, one still has to decouple the threat of violence from the use of violence to determine if a preemptive act of violence is a necessary or appropriate response. in other words, punching someone who has threatened to punch you can still be an assault just as killing someone who threatened to kill you can still be murder.

Indeed. Nobody said it was easy.

The overt lethal-ness of firearms means that using them and trying to figure out if that was justified after the fact is problematic, particularly in the circumstances your describe, where an emotional response to a perceived threat is taken as a legitimising factor in the use of lethal force.

That depends on what you mean by "using." A handgun can be "used" in several different ways short of discharging it, all of which may be perfectly legal as a response to a threat of violence.

Where I cannot necessarily shoot someone who appears to be ready to attack me without forming a reasonable belief that I or another is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, I can respond with a lesser degree of physical force by using the gun as a deterrent to further violent attack, something police officers do all the time. It's pre-emptive and it's legal based on their analysis of the situation and their assessment of immediate risk.

Angry, enraged, and/or fearful people in possession of overtly lethal weapons does not seem to be a good recipe for discouraging the general use of violence in society, or even a recipe for a stable society, imo.

The evidence in hand demonstrates this to be an incorrect assumption.

To a great extent the mere possession of overtly lethal weapons acts as the primary legitimising factor in their use.

I disagree. You presume that the possessor is not taking into account the nature of the device and the rights of others in deciding to use or not use it.

Or to put it another way, the firearm authorises its own use - you don't argue with a gun because a gun is such an effective argument terminator.

That much is true, however the implication that a gun will be used to settle an argument merely because it is present is not supported by fact.

That's what you do not seem to understand. If you attack me with a cricket bat, I'm going to shoot you and be justified in doing so because a cricket bat wielded as an instrument of unlawful attack is the very definition of a "deadly weapon" that authorizes me to use deadly physical force in self-defense. I intend that my tools and skills for applying lawful deadly force be superior to yours at all times. I may fail in that objective, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to strive for tactical and strategic superiority over potential attackers.

There is no failure to understand here - I simply do not accept your general justifications for the ownership of personal firearms or their use.

So you do not accept that the innocent individual has an absolute right to personal safety against criminal violence?

I can imagine someone sooo enraged, determined, resourceful and tooled up that they're willing to use a couple of attack helicopters on me. Should I declare an exclusion zone around my house and pop an air defence system on the roof?

Why not?

Because this leads to a tooled up, shit society running on fear and paranoia.

Does it? Do you have some critically robust scientific data proving that assertion?

It's your airspace and if someone gives you legal cause to exercise lethal force against them by attacking you with a helicopter I wouldn't presume to interfere with your absolute right to use whatever weapons would effectively and lawfully terminate that threat. I'd be very careful that you do a proper threat analysis and determine that there is in fact a threat which authorizes you to activate your air defense system before doing so however, lest you make a mistake and activate it improperly, because then you would have to be punished for your illegal act.

Indeed. See my points above.

And if you operate it properly, you won't be a danger to anyone you shouldn't be a danger to.

An imaginable threat is not a reasoned or reasonable threat,

That depends on whether it's an "imagined" threat or a genuine threat.

Well, as I made explicit reference to an 'imagined threat' and not a 'genuine threat' we can probably take it to mean exactly what it said eh?

You're trying to stuff the entire anti-gun argument into that "imagined threat" envelope, which I'm not going to let you do.

Air attack by helicopter on your home is likely an imaginary threat, unless you're a dignitary who may be the target of terrorists, but it is neither unlawful nor immoral for you to provide those defenses if you decide you should do so. You are however required to operate them in accordance with the law.

Ground attack by an armed assault teams or a mugger with a hand gun are also mostly likely to be an imaginary threat in an unarmed society, like the one in which I'm lucky to find myself.

Hardly imaginary. Consider the poor soldier who had his head hacked off while a bunch of sheeple stood by taking selfies and shooting cell-phone video. Unlikely in your particular situation perhaps, but that's a threat risk you get to assess for yourself, not for anyone else.

.. and within the context of an unarmed population it is not reasonable to think you need to defend yourself against armed assailants.

As I said, there is no such thing as an unarmed population...

And as I said, that follows from your equivocations on 'unarmed'

I'm not equivocating, you're niggling.

... much less a society free of violent unlawful attacks on innocent persons, therefore your argument is non sequitur.

Please point out where I said that there exists any society which is "free of violent unlawful attacks on innocent persons."

I didn't say you did. I was making the point that your characterizing of your society as being so peaceful as to make an armed attack on a citizen "imaginary" is simply untrue.

And no, that does not mean that you can't take, or should not take, any other reasonable measure to keep yourself safe and secure.

I get to take whatever measures or precautions I choose to take to remain safe and secure I choose, so long as engaging those defensive measures does not violate any law.

In the context of an unarmed society (my meaning of unarmed, a society where the possession of personal firearms is not permitted) even your level of paranoia and fear about the likelihood and ability of others to kill you could not be brought to bear in justifications for taking 'whatever measures or precautions your choose to take'. In my particular demilitarised society the kind of private militia you describe below is not only be outlawed but would also be seen for what it is - a unwarranted threat of violence in its own right.

And therein lies the paranoia and cognitive disconnect of your society.

... If I want to buy an armored Mercedes Benz to drive around in and hire a cadre of armed guards to precede and follow me in armored vehicles I have a perfect right to do so. If I want an air-defense missile installation on my roof, so long as I comply with the requirements of the NFA, I may install such a system. If I want to hire skilled snipers to guard my home 24/7, I can. But I'm also entirely responsible if they act outside of the law in exercising any degree of physical force, no matter how slight. You see, possessing arms and using them are two entirely different things. You falsely presume that possessing such arms leads inevitably to the use of those arms, and moreover you falsely presume that such deployment will be either unlawful or unsafe for other innocent persons. But our laws address that quite nicely be holding me personally liable for improper use of my arms. And until I do use them improperly, it's my right to possess them and to keep them available for immediate defense, regardless of how unlikely or improbable you might think my threat analysis is.

You do not get to determine my self-defense planning or preparation...

I am not determining your self-defence plans or preparations, I'm suggesting that the ability to make certain specific perperations be legally curtailed.

...based on your paranoid fears of my being armed...QED.

... Your paranoid fear of my being armed does not give you license to interfere with my ability to so prepare and plan. Unless and until I harm someone unlawfully, my right to personal safety trumps your vacuous fears.

That, my dear friend, is simply ridiculousness incarnate.

No, it's the whole point.

As I have already pointed out, in an unarmed society one does not forsake any rights or obligations in that regard.

There is no such thing as an unarmed society. There is at best only an unarmed law-abiding citizenry. Criminals will always be armed.

In the context of an unarmed society (my meaning, no guns) one does not forsake any rights or obligations to effectively defend either oneself or others.

Your meaning is pettifoggery.

How many times have you been criminally assialed btw?

Several, as a police officer. Once as a civilian. In that instance the fact that I had a gun prevented me from being shot by my assailant.

My cognisance is not really the issue here. Look, I get that you think that the possibility of being attacked, hurt, disabled, maimed or killed justifies an armed (my meaning, having guns) populace, but this only reiterates your point, not bolster it, nor does it engage with what I said, which is that in circumstances where someone feels inclined to harm someone else a gun is a disproportionate actualiser, the wider possession of which has consequences for society at large. It is those consequences which you are working so hard to ignore and abrogate.

Indeed it does, and the evidence shows that the consequences include less violent crime and lower criminal victimization rates.

It suggest that you find yourself in a society where you are exposed a high rate of indiscriminate and possibly extreme or lethal violence.

Everybody lives in a society with lethal violence potential. Everyone, everywhere, all the time.

It suggests to me that you find yourself in a society where people are exposed a high rate of indiscriminate and possibly extreme or lethal violence, but you cannot reasonably infer that I think an absence of guns equals an absence of threats of or actual violence, can you(?) Back to the plot please.

That's sure how it sounds. You studiously evade the consequences of disarming crime victims so I must assume that you think that guns are the only tools of criminal violence of any importance.

This is exactly why I suggested you spend some time in a demilitarised part of the world.

Been there, done that. I spent last summer in a "demilitarized" part of the US: New York City, where I was prohibited from carrying my pistol by law, which placed me at constant risk from attack by the criminals who illegally carry their pistols. Or their cricket bats. Or their rocks. Or their broken beer bottles and knives.

And in that situation of 'constant risk' how many times did you lament no having your pistole on you because were you threatened with a gun, a cricket bat, a rock, a broken beer bottle, or a knife? Feel free to provide a table if it helps!

Several times, as a police officer (frankly I don't remember how many times I was required to draw my weapon, but I have been lucky that I have not been required to discharge it...yet...a trend that I sincerely hope continues.

But how many times I have been a victim of criminal violence is utterly irrelevant to the argument because every person has an absolute and unalienable right not to be the victim of criminal violence EVEN ONCE.

Guns only seem a 'necessary tool' within a gun culture, and it demonstrates the limitations of your own thinking to presume that one is somehow rendered unduly vulnerable and defenceless by their absence.

Guns aren't a necessary tool until one needs a gun in a situation where a gun is the best option for preventing harm or is the only option for defending one's life. The problem is that such events are highly unpredictable (just ask the victims of Port Arthur) and do in fact occur in every place on earth at random times in random locations, so the rational thing to do is to remain prepared for effective personal defense at all times. Since my being prepared for effective personal defense does not increase the risks of violent criminal attack to others, because I am not a violent criminal, there is no reason for you or anyone else to fear, much less interfere with those preparations.

It is the inappropriate use of personal firearms in inappropriate circumstances which concerns me - I've already qualified this above.

If I inappropriately use my personal firearm you are free to demand that I be prosecuted under one of the 50,000 laws that control how and when I may discharge my firearm. Until then, it's none of your business whether I carry a gun or not. Your paranoid fear of my carrying a gun is beneath consideration.

The underlying question in the 'gun debate' devolve around the undoubted sense of personal power and authority a personal firearm lends any individual (until they meet a person with a big gun and a badder attitude of course) and, perhaps more importantly, the nature of the relationship between those with guns and those without. I doubt whether these question can ever find traction while people are so determined to parrot tired fables and canards about how possessing the ability to remotely kill others makes a society less violent and more stable and/or free.

Your irrational fear is not justification...

Your cheap shot through the misrepresentation of the word 'fear' here is uncalled for..

It is fear, and it is irrational.

... for placing me at unnecessary risk by forcibly disarming me. Your argument shows once again that the root issue here is your irrational fear of your fellow law-abiding community members, not a rational assessment of the risks of an armed citizenry. You demonstrate an extremely unhealthy mistrust of your fellow citizens, so unhealthy that it causes you to attempt to infringe on their rights to personal safety using the expedient of the law. That is a grossly immoral and unethical act and it makes you personally morally liable for every injury and death that could have been avoided if you had not participated in disarming your fellow citizens.

Please point out where I said that I wished to forcibly disarm you.

Well, that's the only way you'll manage it, so it's reasonable to say so.

This speaks directly to that sense of personal power and authority that personal firearms lend an individual, to such an extent that even discussing the possibility of a society without guns seems to inculcate in them an overwhelming sense of person powerlessness and vulnerability.

And if so, what's wrong with that? That's exactly what they are in your country, powerless and vulnerable.

Unfortunately this makes for a highly emotionally charged arena and means that what passes for the 'gun debate' tends to become rather 'me-centered' on the gun advocate, and in that wider questions are lost in a lather of what-if scenarios to which the gun seems the only 'reasonable' solution.

What "wider questions" do you mean? Your paranoia about your fellow citizens being armed? I've disposed of that already.