That being said, we cannot clsoe that box anymore than Pandora could.
As such it is necessary that some be armed in protection of thsoe that choose not to be armed or cannot be armed becasue of insufficent maturity or mental capacity.
The problem comes in when people begin to attempt to enforce their own moral systems using firearms.
Firearms allow for genocide and the perpetuation of extreme tyranny and despotism.
It's hard for me to agree with you.
It'd be better if there were no guns, but that isn't going to save my ass if someonse is trying to shoot me. However, dude with gun cabinent full of ak's and a concealed carry permit standing next to me in line might just blow away the crazy dude with the gun. Problem is that the crazy dude with a gun might just be some redneck fed up with the govment takin' all his hard earned natty light money and forcing him to obey communist laws.
I can't wrap my brain around it, honestly.
For me, I'm a pacificist and I always will be. Guns aren't for me.
I have a simple exam for a true pacifist. One that illustrates for me the fact that most folks are indeed at some level prone to defending themselves.
Sit two folks on a bench, the object for the aggressive person is to own the whole bench, the object for the pacifist it to retain a portion. Losing the bench entirely represents slavery or death depending on which role you play.
Now as the aggressive person pushes the pacifist off the bench, the pacifist has a choice, go willingly to slavery or death, or resist. The problem is that the longer they delay the winning of the aggressor, the more aggressive the aggressor is going to become. Ultimately unless they have some sort of superpower they will lose control of the bench, though in some cases they could conceivably talk the aggressor out of their portion and into losing by promising some additional concession.
Ultimately most professed pacifists will be at some point determined not to lose the bench entirely. True pacifists are rare, simply because it takes a very unique soul to be so willing to be run over by life or in this case, impending death/slavery.
I can understand your distrust for your fellow humans, but you should remember without them in play you would simply fall prey to those even more depraved. Only in countries with insulation from violence do pacifists flourish. A good example of how it plays out in the real world outside of the protection of a working military is Rwanda. While they ultimately did succeed in hanging onto their bench as pacifists, it was only by inches, and thousands did die or worse. The folks chosen to be massacred had no means to defend themselves. The citizenry had been disarmed, which is why most of the brutality occurred with machetes and not machine guns. And in continuing my bench analogy, they mostly ended up on a totally new bench, and lost the old one forever.
It doesn't have to be that way. The scenario you describe is much less likely than the carjackings Houston used to experience before Texas adopted the CHL. I knew a man, named Will, who was one of the last people carjacked during the wave we had during the early to mid 90's before CHL passed. Before the carjacking Will was a gifted, incredibly bright and successful individual, former military and as peaceful and nonthreatening as they come. He was driving his brother's brand new dodge viper and pulled to a stop near the medical center in Downtown. Will doesn't remember what happened next, but the evidence showed that he was shot in the face and pulled from the car. The carjacker got 3 blocks before he destroyed the clutch, since that car was stick. He spent months in the hospital and lost pretty much everything related to his former life because of the damage his mind suffered. Had he not been a veteran he would most likely have never been made anything close to whole.
Once the CHL laws passed in Texas violent crime of this sort dropped dramatically. It's public record. In fact the only area of violent crime to really go up to my recollection was home invasion, and that was targeted specifically in Sugarland against asian families, because they were unlikely to own guns or cooperate with the police.
An aside from that, I'm ok with not everyone carrying a gun, but having access to a weapon in general tends to dissuade folks from random acts of violence, simply because they don't know your skill level with said weapon. If this wasn't the case, armed police escorts would be useless, as would reeves during SCA tournaments.
This quote sums up a lot of what I was getting at:
“Generally, of course, non-violence is good, and killing is bad…But each and every thing is judged according to the circumstances of the situation, and, particularly in Buddhism, according to the motivations….In order to save a hundred people, killing one person may be acceptable…Individual, or self, motivation is obviously not allowed….
“…unless we did something sooner or later we couldn’t practice religion…Dharma [had to] prevail and remain…even by violent means.”
While that disagrees with my own philosophy of survival of self, it would indeed cover the protection of children.
That being said, we cannot clsoe that box anymore than Pandora could.
As such it is necessary that some be armed in protection of thsoe that choose not to be armed or cannot be armed becasue of insufficent maturity or mental capacity.
The problem comes in when people begin to attempt to enforce their own moral systems using firearms.
Firearms allow for genocide and the perpetuation of extreme tyranny and despotism.
It's hard for me to agree with you.
It'd be better if there were no guns, but that isn't going to save my ass if someonse is trying to shoot me. However, dude with gun cabinent full of ak's and a concealed carry permit standing next to me in line might just blow away the crazy dude with the gun. Problem is that the crazy dude with a gun might just be some redneck fed up with the govment takin' all his hard earned natty light money and forcing him to obey communist laws.
I can't wrap my brain around it, honestly.
For me, I'm a pacificist and I always will be. Guns aren't for me.
_/|\_,
Traci
Reply
Sit two folks on a bench, the object for the aggressive person is to own the whole bench, the object for the pacifist it to retain a portion. Losing the bench entirely represents slavery or death depending on which role you play.
Now as the aggressive person pushes the pacifist off the bench, the pacifist has a choice, go willingly to slavery or death, or resist. The problem is that the longer they delay the winning of the aggressor, the more aggressive the aggressor is going to become. Ultimately unless they have some sort of superpower they will lose control of the bench, though in some cases they could conceivably talk the aggressor out of their portion and into losing by promising some additional concession.
Ultimately most professed pacifists will be at some point determined not to lose the bench entirely. True pacifists are rare, simply because it takes a very unique soul to be so willing to be run over by life or in this case, impending death/slavery.
I can understand your distrust for your fellow humans, but you should remember without them in play you would simply fall prey to those even more depraved. Only in countries with insulation from violence do pacifists flourish. A good example of how it plays out in the real world outside of the protection of a working military is Rwanda. While they ultimately did succeed in hanging onto their bench as pacifists, it was only by inches, and thousands did die or worse. The folks chosen to be massacred had no means to defend themselves. The citizenry had been disarmed, which is why most of the brutality occurred with machetes and not machine guns. And in continuing my bench analogy, they mostly ended up on a totally new bench, and lost the old one forever.
It doesn't have to be that way. The scenario you describe is much less likely than the carjackings Houston used to experience before Texas adopted the CHL. I knew a man, named Will, who was one of the last people carjacked during the wave we had during the early to mid 90's before CHL passed. Before the carjacking Will was a gifted, incredibly bright and successful individual, former military and as peaceful and nonthreatening as they come. He was driving his brother's brand new dodge viper and pulled to a stop near the medical center in Downtown. Will doesn't remember what happened next, but the evidence showed that he was shot in the face and pulled from the car. The carjacker got 3 blocks before he destroyed the clutch, since that car was stick. He spent months in the hospital and lost pretty much everything related to his former life because of the damage his mind suffered. Had he not been a veteran he would most likely have never been made anything close to whole.
Once the CHL laws passed in Texas violent crime of this sort dropped dramatically. It's public record. In fact the only area of violent crime to really go up to my recollection was home invasion, and that was targeted specifically in Sugarland against asian families, because they were unlikely to own guns or cooperate with the police.
Reply
Also, even Buddhists are known to oppose the tyranny of other men. http://article.nationalreview.com/310772/the-dalai-lamas-army/dave-kopel
This quote sums up a lot of what I was getting at:
“Generally, of course, non-violence is good, and killing is bad…But each and every thing is judged according to the circumstances of the situation, and, particularly in Buddhism, according to the motivations….In order to save a hundred people, killing one person may be acceptable…Individual, or self, motivation is obviously not allowed….
“…unless we did something sooner or later we couldn’t practice religion…Dharma [had to] prevail and remain…even by violent means.”
While that disagrees with my own philosophy of survival of self, it would indeed cover the protection of children.
Reply
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