This is a story from a few years ago about banning weapons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4031405.stm

There can be no reason for people buying swords off the street for use or to have in their homes

Jack McConnell
First Minister

 

This is a story from a few years ago about banning weapons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4031405.stm

There can be no reason for people buying swords off the street for use or to have in their homes


Jack McConnell
First Minister

In that country, his opinion is valid. There, the ownership of weapons is a privilege, not a right. Whatever the government chooses to ban, for whatever reasons, is fair game.

 

I'll argue that point. The rights of people are not based on whatever fashionable laws a Government may choose.

What if the Government, in some new fashion, makes a law that people are to be rounded up and killed in gas chambers? Are you saying those people (in whatever country) suddenly have no right to life?

People have the right to live, and they have the right to defend themselves against evil attackers. It's just that in some countries (and some eras) the law is simply defective.

No law is greater than justice or morality, or greater than what is "right". The origin of the term "rights".

 

This has turned into preaching to the converted.

 

"He also announced plans to give police more powers of search and arrest and to increase the age limit for buying a knife from 16 to 18."

"We will be putting forward the action we believe is required to tackle the scandalously high level of knife crime in Scotland."

Are young men the "people" we are talking about here, the same people who have the right to carry weapons?.

For what reason young people can buy alcohol only after a certain age? Or smoke? Or drive?

Because they (in general) are impulsive and they are not responsible enough to know the harm they can do! I remember how I used to drive when I was younger.

This report does not seem to talk about murder (intentional) but rather knife attacks from people that didn'wanted to necessarily kill you. I can very well imgaine why there need to be regulations especially for young people who have nothing to do other than spending their time on the street... and if there is a fight somewhere, well let's go in and use whatever we have, say our knifes...

As WBahn pointed out somewhere, every case is a separated issue. For me, banning weapon sales to the very young makes sense. Until they can foresee the consequences of their actions.

Big problem I see that parents don't have much influence on what their youngster do.

EDIT: BTW, A knife as a self-defense weapon has IMO only very limited utility. You have to be VERY well trained to repel even an unarmed attacker. It is much more useful in the hand of the person who attacks you... Not really comparable to a gun.

 

Why any child should need to buy a firearm is beyond me.

Read what I've written, 'buy', not 'use'.

 

This has turned into preaching to the converted.

It happens at every church service.

But what I really want to know is what that signature line of yours is supposed to mean.

 

Why any child should need to buy a firearm is beyond me.

Read what I've written, 'buy', not 'use'.

A child cannot legally buy or even posses a firearm in the US

 

A child cannot legally buy or even posses a firearm in the US

And yet, when they could (at least possess, I don't know if they could ever purchase), we didn't have wanton shootings of and by kids.

When I was eight years old I was in an organization that, among many activities including sports, band, wilderness survival, Toastmasters, drill teams and more, offered marksmanship training. So I took their Hunter Safety course (and got the State issued certificate) and started marksmanship training. From the age of 8 to 12 (when the organization folded for financial reasons), I shot competitively in NRA Junior Marksmanship tournaments, including two Wyoming and one Colorado state championships. The range was in a basement of a building within easy walking distance of downtown Denver and we had members from all over the metro area. There were several kids that rode the city bus to the range and I knew some that were about my age (probably 10 by that time) who got on the bus with their rifles, usually in a soft rifle case but sometimes uncased because they didn't have one, and with a couple hundred rounds of ammo in their pockets. I'm not aware of any of them ever having a problem of any kind. This was in the 1975 to 1977 time frame. I knew of one person, probably four years older than me (and I found out that later, a few years after the organization folded, he was making a serious run for the U.S. Olympic team, but don't know if he actually made it) that hopped the bus directly from school to the range and had to take his gun to school with him on those days. So four days a week, he got on the school bus in the morning with his gun, put the gun in the closet in the main office when he got to school, collected it after school from the office and then got on the city bus to go to the range. I think his father usually picked up when it was time to go home. He always kept his ammo in his pocket throughout the day because he had forgotten it one time and left it sitting in the office closet.

When my dad was a school boy (late 1930's or so), most boys (and some girls) brought guns to school during much of the year and just put them in a rack one of the parents had built off to the side in the literally one-room school house (with an outhouse in the back). My dad often shot a number of rabbits on the way home from school and that was dinner that night.

 

I'll argue that point. The rights of people are not based on whatever fashionable laws a Government may choose.

What if the Government, in some new fashion, makes a law that people are to be rounded up and killed in gas chambers? Are you saying those people (in whatever country) suddenly have no right to life?

People have the right to live, and they have the right to defend themselves against evil attackers. It's just that in some countries (and some eras) the law is simply defective.

No law is greater than justice or morality, or greater than what is "right". The origin of the term "rights".

I agree with your last 2 lines; or at least, I agree that it should be true. However I cannot agree with your first line. Unfortunately people, based on their location, are subject to whatever the law of the land is. For example, even here in "the Land of the Free", gays don't have the right to get married because those at the helm have a moral conviction about it. "what's right" and "what's wrong" can be very subjective. And yes, through history, governments and powers have made the decision that certain groups do not have the right to live, and revoked that right. As evidenced by the fact that they are not alive. I believe it wasn't until very recently that an official apology was offered for the crusades.

 

http://www.infowars.com/police-brutality-worse-than-rodney-king/

 

It's a long video, but I think everyone should watch it. I always question whether anything on a website is real or fabricated, so spent some time doing some Google searches and it appears that it is anything but. I haven't come across anything that even seems to contradict what the guy claims in this video. This happened over two years ago. Where is the outrage? Where is the ACLU?

 

I agree with your last 2 lines; or at least, I agree that it should be true. However I cannot agree with your first line. Unfortunately people, based on their location, are subject to whatever the law of the land is. For example, even here in "the Land of the Free", gays don't have the right to get married because those at the helm have a moral conviction about it. "what's right" and "what's wrong" can be very subjective. And yes, through history, governments and powers have made the decision that certain groups do not have the right to live, and revoked that right. As evidenced by the fact that they are not alive. I believe it wasn't until very recently that an official apology was offered for the crusades.

That's a good argument, and I agree there is something of a "grey area" regarding where the law ends and where rights end.

The only thing I am sure of is that there can be a difference between "law" and what is "right".

And I can't agree with a premise that the ONLY rights you have are what the currently fashionable law allows (see my gas chamber example). People have certain rights no matter how the law might change year by year.

The "law" attempts to do a good enough job most of the time for most of the peope. But it is far from perfect and many times bad people get off on a law technicality and good people get unjustly punished on another law technicality. But all the time, and in all cases, what is just and right REMAINS just and right. Justice > law, end of story.

 

My own belief is somewhat more practical in nature.

The notion of what is "a right" is very abstract. What does it mean to say that someone has "a right" to something, be it life, food, water, health care?

I don't think we can reasonably separate the notion of what someone's "rights" are from the recourse they have if unable to enjoy those rights; in other words, from a practical standpoint, a 'right' is only a 'right' to the extent that they have the ability to assert, protect, and defend that 'right'.

It's fine to say that a Holocaust victim had the "right to life" when they were led into the gas chamber. However, even if correct, it is also entirely irrelevant.

I guess this is how I would say it: The laws, nature, society, and numerous other factors dictate what a person's "practical rights' are as determined by their ability to assert, protect, and defend those rights. But society (i.e., a group of human beings living amongst each other and interacting with each other) collectively determine what a person's 'rights' "should" be, which I will call a person's "nominal rights" and takes steps, such as passing laws, to give people the ability to assert, protect, and defend those rights.

Due to the realities of people living amongst each other, a person's practical rights are always a subset of their nominal rights. Furthermore, many of the nominal rights that a society believes in will be, at least at times, in conflict with each other.

It is all well and good to hope government will respect and protect the "rights" of its citizens, but when the government becomes the 'only' protector of those rights, then those rights are exceeding fragile because all governments tend to be fickle and will always be willing to consider denying you certain rights in favor of 'the greater good'. Thus, there needs to be a means of protecting and defending key 'rights' not only if the government won't do so, but especially when the government chooses to deny you those 'rights'.

 

It's a long video, but I think everyone should watch it. I always question whether anything on a website is real or fabricated, so spent some time doing some Google searches and it appears that it is anything but. I haven't come across anything that even seems to contradict what the guy claims in this video. This happened over two years ago. Where is the outrage? Where is the ACLU?

I know. Crazy.. I'm trying to spread the word. posted it on facebook as well.

 

...
It's fine to say that a Holocaust victim had the "right to life" when they were led into the gas chamber. However, even if correct, it is also entirely irrelevant.

It's far from "entirely irrelevant". We were discussing gun laws and the govt passing new laws that *attempt* to take away people's rights.

I gave a recent example of when a govt passed laws that attempted to take away people's rights, to the great detriment of the people. Since that time those "laws" have been exposed as immoral and against the people's rights. Confirming my point that the "law" does not determine what rights people have, any laws existing today are a popular fashion and some laws are right, and some are wrong.

...
... But society (i.e., a group of human beings living amongst each other and interacting with each other) collectively determine what a person's 'rights' "should" be, which I will call a person's "nominal rights" and takes steps, such as passing laws, to give people the ability to assert, protect, and defend those rights.
...

And "society" or at least its govt, sometimes passes laws which are wrong, and which attempt to take away the rights of the people.

Democracy has been described as "Five wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner". It's not perfect, and the lamb DOES have rights regardless of whichever laws are popular fashionable at that instant.

 

Democracy has been described as "Five wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner". It's not perfect, and the lamb DOES have rights regardless of whichever laws are popular fashionable at that instant.

And here is where people fail... if it were wolves, they would make sure that there is still lamb available for next seasons. People, not so clear.

now, to go a bit off topic... (regarding earlier post by strantor)

Why apologize for the crusades? Were you somehow responsible for it? Are Islamisic countries going to apologize for what they did? Will Turkey say that it is sorry for how the Ottoman empire treated slavic people? Such bs getting bogged down in the past... And if one does not apologize, do we go to war?

New crusades, in a few hundred years people will be apologizing for war on terror (the crusades of the 21 century) as thousands of civilians have died as a result. I love it when history repeats itself.

 

I love it when history repeats itself.

I don't.

 

I love it when history repeats itself.

I don't.

I forgot that sarcasm doesn't come across in writing... or maybe

I "love" it when history repeats itself. And it does, over and over again.

 

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