re the pill for deer no hunting in article pa utkvm utk edu pa utkvm utk edu david veal writes in article apr gnv ifas ufl edu jrm gnv ifas ufl edu writes in article apr synapse bms com hambidge bms com writes self defense is a valid reason for rkba the vast majority get through life without ever having to own use or display a firearm you might have missed the u s news world report excerpt i posted it is fairly consistant with other such polls finding that approximately of households have at least one firearm how this translates into individual ownership is questionable but i think it s fairly safe to say that you re wrong about the vast majority ok a near majority actually own firearms but i will still claim that the vast majority never needs to use them or even threaten anyone with them what do they do right or are they just lucky in either case this means the average threat level in this country is rather low besides there are other means of self protection which can be just as effective as firearms please name them the key phrase is can be theories are nice but practicality is more important a taser to chose an exmpale outlawed virtually everywhere can be as effective as a gun under optimal conditions when dealing with your absolute average i think you have weapons on the brain i never said that these alternative means of self protection involved any hardware why are good neighborhoods good it isn t because every person is armed to the teeth it is because of attitude and cooperation in the good neighborhoods the residents make themselves aware of their neighbors and notice when strangers are lurking around good neighborhoods form groups like crime watch to increase this effect and the relative effectiveness of the police when hostiles are arrested the good neighbors step up and say that s the one officer he was robbing mr jones house in short the alternative to firepower is gangs or at least a benificent manifestation of that social cooperative replace lead with flesh the flesh makes a better conversationalist too and you can invite it over for a block party freedoms and rights are not dependent on public opinion necessity or scientific scrutiny new to this planet everything is dependent on either public or political opinion usually political to imagine that inalienable rights are somehow wired into the vast cold cosmos is purest egotism and a dangerous delusion in a very real sense everything the government does is based on public approval if for no other reason than at any particular time there aren t public servants commonly adorning trees but legality and legitimacy also matter if a government s charter makes a rule which the government then violates it is violated the basis for its existance enforcement of its will becomes a matter solely of force of arms oliver north the man is positively worshiped in many all american conservative quarters he and big ron set up a secret government and did all sorts of severely illegal deeds the kind of stuff you and i would be doing twenty to life for yet he walks free this bs happens all the time in fact it happens so much that no one really cares anymore legitimacy is a non issue legality is a non issue so long as we get t bones and our mtv who gives a rats ass no arguments against rkba can withstand scientific scrutiny they don t have to like so many other things the issue is one of perception rather than boring statistics excuse me sir but you were the one suggesting that arguments for rkba would not stand up to scientific scrutiny no i claimed that no one is interested in the statistical aspects of the argument pure emotion like the abortion issue every time some young innocent is gunned down in a drive by every time some kid is murdered for a jacket every time a store clerk is executed for three dollars in change every time some moron kills his wife because she took the last beer from the fridge every time someone hears a bang in the night the rkba dies emotion is hard to argue against but it must be done anyway if emotion is wrong argue away you can t win the stats are not all that clearly behind firearms and just yesterday you claimed they weren t behind them at all the protection factor does not strongly outweigh the mindless mayhem factor operating under the assumption that the same conditions absolutely govern both of them that the expansion of one automatically necessitates the contraction of the other firearms related mindless mayhem will be related to the availibility of firearms if they become scarce and and expensive a different psychology will take hold i think they would be used far less to settle trivial complaints
