Our US government: Should they fear us or Controle?

[Brett Alex]

I'm talking about if the American people rose up against a government that violated the constitution, most people in the military wouldn't side with the government because they had an oath to defend the constitution. That was my point.

EDIT: With the amount of people in the military that would turn against the corrupt government it probably wouldn't even be much of a fight if at all because of the hundreds of millions against them.

The constitution is neither some holy unchangeable document, nor is it not open to interpretation. As PurpleRain mentioned, these issues are hardly black and white, so the soldiers might think (or be convinced to think) they are defending the constitution, and that the people protesting have misunderstood the constitution and are in the wrong, and need to be stopped. In that case, fighting the masses would be defending the constitution from their perspective.

And if Kent State shows you anything, it shows soldiers breaching the constitution they were meant to defend to follow orders. I'm pretty sure anti-War protests are covered under the First Amendment, no? I'm pretty sure opening fire on unarmed, civilians protesting within their First Amendment rights would go against not just the wording but the spirit of the constitution.

You have to remember, while the Oath to Defend the Constitution would be a very important thing in a soldiers mind, it is not like some kind of Suk Conditioning that cannot be broken, or at least twisted or ignored in any way, shape, or form.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

I'm talking about if the American people rose up against a government that violated the constitution, most people in the military wouldn't side with the government because they had an oath to defend the constitution. That was my point.

EDIT: With the amount of people in the military that would turn against the corrupt government it probably wouldn't even be much of a fight if at all because of the hundreds of millions against them.

The constitution is neither some holy unchangeable document, nor is it not open to interpretation. As PurpleRain mentioned, these issues are hardly black and white, so the soldiers might think (or be convinced to think) they are defending the constitution, and that the people protesting have misunderstood the constitution and are in the wrong, and need to be stopped. In that case, fighting the masses would be defending the constitution from their perspective.

And if Kent State shows you anything, it shows soldiers breaching the constitution they were meant to defend to follow orders. I'm pretty sure anti-War protests are covered under the First Amendment, no? I'm pretty sure opening fire on unarmed, civilians protesting within their First Amendment rights would go against not just the wording but the spirit of the constitution.

You have to remember, while the Oath to Defend the Constitution would be a very important thing in a soldiers mind, it is not like some kind of Suk Conditioning that cannot be broken, or at least twisted or ignored in any way, shape, or form.

I feel need to add the march of the war WW1 veterans demanding they get paid what the government promised to pay them to your Kent state comment. This shows that the military will not just fire on civilians without hesitation: It will fire on it's OWN MEN without hesitation if so ordered to do so. Men who had also taken up arms for, fought for and even lost friends for the very country that is now ordering them shot at. Those holding those guns now poised at the former heroes of WW1... obeyed.

 

[Vuljatar]

Would you rather be shot once, or robbed twice?

I would rather shoot the robber. However many times it took to make him drop his weapon.

You are a sick puppy.

There is nothing wrong with self-defense.

 

[PurpleRain]

Would you rather be shot once, or robbed twice?

I would rather shoot the robber. However many times it took to make him drop his weapon.

You are a sick puppy.

There is nothing wrong with self-defense.

You need to shoot a person for that now days? Also you made it sound as if you were killing them. Just saying you'll shoot them and in no general place.

 

[dietpeachsnapple]

Its a balancing act.

If a government is paralyzed by fear, it will either sit and do nothing, or only pander to the majority 9/10.

(wait a second >.>)

If the Government does not fear the people, it will do whatever it wants, when it wants, with politicians telling enough "truth," to get re-elected.

(0.0 ... huh...)

 

[halonut117]

They should get their heads out of their collective asses.

 

[Hexenwolf]

I feel need to add the march of the war WW1 veterans demanding they get paid what the government promised to pay them to your Kent state comment. This shows that the military will not just fire on civilians without hesitation: It will fire on it's OWN MEN without hesitation if so ordered to do so. Men who had also taken up arms for, fought for and even lost friends for the very country that is now ordering them shot at. Those holding those guns now poised at the former heroes of WW1... obeyed.

They didn't shoot them, they threw tear gas at them. Your point certainly still stands, but it is a very big difference.

On the note of the military, I think they are far more conditioned to follow orders than to protect the Constitution. They make that oath once, they follow orders every day. That doesn't mean that they'll follow every order, but nonetheless, if the military leaders weren't in favor of the revolution, then the revolution might have to fight the military. It also depends on how blatantly corrupt the government is, if it's super obvious, then it's certainly possible that the military itself will revolt.

You need to shoot a person for that now days? Also you made it sound as if you were killing them. Just saying you'll shoot them and in no general place.

You certainly do need to shoot them in order to defend yourself if they have a gun and are even mildly proficient at using it. Barring very unlikely circumstances, there's no other method of effectively defending yourself. Furthermore, statistics show that there is an even lower rate of victim injury when a person pulls a weapon on a robber than when they cooperate with the robber.

Overall, on the topic of guns, if there's evidence and statistics showing both benefits and harmful side effects to the restriction of guns then wouldn't the logical solution be to allow citizens to carry guns, but not have full access to them, hmm, maybe something like the system we have now? It's not exactly perfect, but it is far better than completely banning guns or allowing all people to have any guns they want. The truth is, guns can be helpful in certain situations, but they are dangerous, and do need some restrictions. For example, automatic weapons aren't really necessary for civilian use. However, I do think that any law-abiding (and that is key) citizen should be able to purchase a firearm if they choose to.

On the subject of the government, they should absolutely be afraid of the population, not the other way around. One person said earlier back (and I am sorry, but I can't remember who you are) that the government is afraid of us because we can vote them out of office. That is not true, they're in office until their term is up, barring criminal activity and impeachment, but it is an excellent idea. We should be able to hold a special election if to eliminate any major elected official, say, governor and above. However, not by majority, I'm thinking maybe 70%. It seems reasonable to me that if more than two thirds of the population under your jurisdiction hates you that much, then you're not doing your job and should be fired. That capability would do far, far more to make our government bow it's head to the population then weaker gun laws ever would.

 

[JWAN]

I believe that the people should have the freedom to choose and that the government should only defend their people from foreign threats

 

[Superbeast]

snip

Be realistic though. Criminals will never abandon their trusty firearms to try to rob stores with melee weapons. Once you stop using a gun to commit a crime, a ton of the intimidation is lost. The chance to be thwarted by whomever you are trying to rob increases exponentially the second you give up the huge advantage of using a firearm.

Even if the entire population is unarmed, criminals will still use guns. What makes you think they'll follow suit? They have no reason to do so.

Also, I don't see how by de-arming the nation you'd make it any easier to stop trafficking of weapons. It would require the same amount of effort as it would now (or more, I contend, because if firearms were made illegal to buy, illegal trade would skyrocket, making stopping trafficking harder (see: prohibition)).

This is what I was sort of getting at. An unarmed population is safer than an armed population (look at the armed robbery/assault rates, murder rates and numbers of firearm incidents on a per-capita basis between UK, Europe and America - that's what I used to establish a factual basis for this opinion) BUT wouldn't work in America because disarming the population is not going to work - criminals have had easy access to guns and wouldn't hand them over, and there are enough weapons in cirulation to have an (un)healthy illegal arms trade readily available. It's just not possible to implement any kind of ban now (and likely never will be - which is why, even if a politician promises it, you'll probably never see an over-turning of the 2nd Ammendment - it'll just be used as a vote-winner).

The argument that if guns are illegal only criminals will have guns is, of course, a tautology. That is, it's worthless. The real argument should be, if guns are illegal, how many criminals will have guns? The answer? Less than now.. because it'll become more risky to get them in, and as such, more expensive (even on the black market), and as such, rarer.

Also, if firearms are made illegal, then smuggling is much more difficult. What, you think smuggling right now is with rubber dinghys over oceans in the middle of the night? Please, most smuggling is done through accountancy tricks. Ship in three boxes using an invoice number for one box, and that kind of thing.

Of course, the difficulty with this in the states is that guns are so endemic already. A town can't just say "No guns" unless they police their borders to make sure guns aren't brought in. That's the only way you get the benefit from the laws.

The argument that if guns are illegal only criminals will have guns is, of course, a tautology. That is, it's worthless. The real argument should be, if guns are illegal, how many criminals will have guns? The answer? Less than now.. because it'll become more risky to get them in, and as such, more expensive (even on the black market), and as such, rarer.

Would you rather be shot once, or robbed twice? The sad truth is, knowing that citizenry often have guns, there has been growing incidence of criminals shooting people first, then simply looting the place. Remember, it is extremely unlikely that you'll have the element of surprise on a criminal -- because the criminal chooses to instigate the situation, and is likely paranoid while in it.

And, as also pointed out, when law abiding citizens do not have guns, it reduces accidental gun violence, and the escalation of a drunken brawl into gun violence. If law abiding citizens always behaved perfectly, and accidents didn't happen, your point would have more merit.

These are my views as well (just written more succinctly and with less hyperbole). A cookie to the author.

Overall I think guns *don't* make people safer - going back a few pages to the example "who would rob a bank if there were 20 armed people?" Well, most robbers aren't going to give much warning, the first you'll know is there'll be a gun in your back - and, if the population is armed, the (pretty high-class if knocking off banks) robbers will likely be carrying automatics. Want to bet how many of the 20 people would pull a gun with a machine-gun in their face? The robbers will also make it first priority to disarm everyone in the building - giving them a nice supply of weapons/ammunition if it comes to a police siege (that would also make forensic ballistics have a bloody difficult time too). In this (hypothetical) situation guns have done nothing except exacerbate it, by causing the robbers to bring much greater hardware and the potential to really screw up the forensic investigation afterwards.

 

[Vuljatar]

Overall I think guns *don't* make people safer - going back a few pages to the example "who would rob a bank if there were 20 armed people?" Well, most robbers aren't going to give much warning, the first you'll know is there'll be a gun in your back - and, if the population is armed, the (pretty high-class if knocking off banks) robbers will likely be carrying automatics. Want to bet how many of the 20 people would pull a gun with a machine-gun in their face? The robbers will also make it first priority to disarm everyone in the building - giving them a nice supply of weapons/ammunition if it comes to a police siege (that would also make forensic ballistics have a bloody difficult time too). In this (hypothetical) situation guns have done nothing except exacerbate it, by causing the robbers to bring much greater hardware and the potential to really screw up the forensic investigation afterwards.

But robbers wouldn't rob a building full of armed people. Like all predators, they look for easy prey. That's why you don't see people robbing police stations or gun shops. People dumb enough to try that shit die.

 

[jboking]

In a prefect world, the government should be the people. Of course we don't live in one of those so I think I would have to go with the government fearing the people. After all, it only takes a certain amount of conditioning to turn a normal citizen into a terrorist.

On that note, I think the government in USA actually does fear it's people. My reasoning, the patriot act.

As for the gun control thing, it always struck me that one day I may have to defend myself against the government. I would kind of like a gun should that time come. Of course that is mostly paranoia.

 

[Borrowed Time]

Would you rather be shot once, or robbed twice?

I would rather shoot the robber. However many times it took to make him drop his weapon.

You are a sick puppy.

There is nothing wrong with self-defense.

You need to shoot a person for that now days? Also you made it sound as if you were killing them. Just saying you'll shoot them and in no general place.

If someone is coming into my home where my family is sleeping and I have no clue as to how they are armed or what their intention is, you damn well are assured I'll be shooting to kill. Call me sick all you want, but I know my family will be safe when the individual(s) has 3 rounds worth of buckshot in their chest.

 

[Toasty]

Although i'm not American, I doubt that the right to bear arms was conceived for that purpose. If you want to keep a goverment in check then all the American people have to do is vote for the right people who'll run the goverment the right way.

I realise that this is comment assumes an ideal situation and that sometimes it's a choice of the lesser of two evils, but democracy is the least corrupt (relatively) of the goverment types we know so all you can do is use your vote right and hope for the best, unless you decide to run for office yourself, in which case best of luck.

Also I can't believe Sarah Palin would want weapons banned. Isn't she a republican?

And as for "Should our Goverment fear us?" I think you may have watched V for Vendetta one too many times.

Yeah the problem is MOST of the time it seems a choice between the lesser of two evils/or idiots. And dishearteningly enough the two main parties(democrats and republicans or Labour and Conservatives, at least in the UK) have a greater weighting than the other parties, which means it takes less votes to get a Conservative representative in power than it does to get an Independant party representative in. So the democracy is tilted in favour of those already in power.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

If the crime situation is such that the police need to be armed, it is both immoral and inhumane to deny the private citizen the right to arm themself. If, however, the police go about unarmed (beat cops, not armed response) then I see no reason for the citizenry to be armed.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

They didn't shoot them, they threw tear gas at them. Your point certainly still stands, but it is a very big difference.

On the note of the military, I think they are far more conditioned to follow orders than to protect the Constitution. They make that oath once, they follow orders every day. That doesn't mean that they'll follow every order, but nonetheless, if the military leaders weren't in favor of the revolution, then the revolution might have to fight the military. It also depends on how blatantly corrupt the government is, if it's super obvious, then it's certainly possible that the military itself will revolt.

It was a more toxic, cruder, form of tear gas and coupled with bayonet and cavalry charges. All ending with a massive fire of the shanty town the protesting vets where living in. Knowing how devastating these types of charges, and fires, can be I find it hard to believe the 'official' report of only a handful of casualties and one or two 'unfortunate' deaths.

But, this is all a moot point as we both agree. It was to prove if the order to attack even vets was obeyed then the civilians have no chance in hell on relying on the current troops to disobey said order.

Personally I think the military is brainwashed, for lack of better word, into blindly obeying orders. Sure there is a quick few lessons on the rules and regulations but it never is to any real extent and many parts may not even be touched on at all! This makes it very, VERY, easy for the few, if any, lesson about not obeying illegal orders to be lost when you are constantly yelled at for not obeying orders fast enough every other moment.

A big part of your basic training designed to make you act when told before you can even think.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

But robbers wouldn't rob a building full of armed people. Like all predators, they look for easy prey. That's why you don't see people robbing police stations or gun shops. People dumb enough to try that shit die.

Actually... reminded me of a story of a dumb arse who did just that. He tried to rob a gun store and no less then three people took him down with little trouble at all even though he was armed.

What a lot of people need to realise is many criminals are NOT the sort that want to kill. This is something the anti-gun crowd seem to forget. They assume if the criminal body had to kill people to just ensure their own safety that it would be no problem for them to do so. They take this assumption because they must, to accept the reality that criminals are people too and think in much the same ways as law abiding folk would put holes in their argument and deflate their sense of egos, ae: that they are more mentally 'mature' then a criminal.

In reality most of the crime that is committed is non-violent and even when a firearm is present it is designed to scare someone into compliance. Most criminals, like most people, could not bring themselves to pull the trigger. They would agonise over it and would more likely end up fleeing before they actually kill someone when faced with the possibility of actually having to kill someone.

They don't target people they know are armed not cause they are cowards, but because they do not want to have to face the possibility of having to kill someone let alone doing so!

Remember, most crime is caused by environmental factors. The biggest being poverty. In these incidences it is far better for a criminal to archive the ends, ae: getting money, through a non-violent means or through scare tactics then 'kill and loot' methods. Trust me, if the human mind, or some mythical 'criminal mind', was more inclined to killing then there would be far more anarchy in the world.

As for those who do have a desire to kill someone, those that can pull the trigger... well they ALREADY do! They do so regardless of how a person complies or if they are armed or not. It is much harder for a corpse to identify them to the police afterwards, is it not?

Such people do exist, but as the anti-gun crowd needs to grasp: They are not the common criminal. And I... I need to grasp a better understanding of English it seems.

 

[elemenetal150]

Lately it seems that our govornment has been restricting us more and more. It almost seems the people of the US are having less and less a say in law making. What about our original rights: "We the people of the United States...". Wait... WE the PEOPLE! shouldn't we have a bigger say? Our second amendment the right to bear arms was made to keep our govornment in check. Now we have restritions on weapons: blade sizes, gun types, ect. Don't worry I'm not saying those are bad I'm just saying that our government has no right to do that. Yes it might be different from when our rights were made: we have stronger more destructive weapons. But still the more our government restricts our weapons the more they find they can controle us.

Back to the origional topic: should our government fear us? It seems nowdays that the only time our officials is election day!

So please talk about this and tell me what you think!

actually the right to bear arms is for the ability to form a well armed militia should the armed forces of our country ever not be enough to repel an invading army. At least that is what the rest of the amendment says. It doesn't just day you have the right to bear arms.

I think that the government does have the right to restrict some of the actions that we as people should be able to do especially with weapons. What does any one need a fully automatic assault rifle for. hand guns are for defense shotguns are for defense and hunting and rifles are for hunting. Restriction are a must. Out of all of the developed countries the US as the most lax gun laws and it also has the highest shooting fatality rate.

plus everyone wants more government, just not in the same area. Freedom of religion and separation of church and state are also in the constitution but religious right Christans don't seem to remember that when they try to pass laws against homosexuals that is purely based on a religious bias. Most of those same people are the ones fighting for less gun laws because of whatever reason and then ***** that there is to much government when they lose.

 

[Superbeast]

But robbers wouldn't rob a building full of armed people. Like all predators, they look for easy prey. That's why you don't see people robbing police stations or gun shops. People dumb enough to try that shit die.

How many incidents are there though where a single robber attempts a heist on a popular bank - or at least one large enough to have 20-or-so patrons in at any one time (I doubt there are many cases, if any at all)? Far more often these kinds of crimes are carried out by mobsters/gangs/teams of criminals (ie those with access to some pretty scary firearms) where there will be several people going into the bank (let's say 5 for this hpyothetical example, as they know they need to control the crowd as they know the crowd is armed). I sure as hell hope that, were I in a situation where there were 5x 30-round automatics pointed at 20 people, some idiot in the crowd wouldn't try to pull a handgun and take them on. That's a sure way to get yourself, and a lot of other people, killed.

After all, these people are expecting (even if as a contingency plan) to be dealing with the police, who are more heavily armed and protected than citizens - to attempt to rob a bank under other circumstances is idiotic (no one who really has a plan for a robbery expects to get away without police intervention at some stage).

Yes - a gun law may help incidents of a single person robbing a 7-11 or similar, but then there aren't huge problems with that in Europe where there are tighter gun restrictions (as it's harder to threaten someone behind a counter with a knife than a gun). However in the situation specified earlier (bank robbery) I don't think they'd help one bit, and may even be detrimental.

Remember, I'm of the opinion gun control is superior to an armed citizenry EXCEPT in the 'States where firearms are so readily available, and have been for so long, that banning them effectively and safely (for the general population) is impossible.