The right of self defense (use it or loose it)

I did not right the story it is just some research for you

Tyler,
The subject was relevance to my statement about the connection between point and shoot combat simulation games and the increase in gun violence.

The evidence suggests that while video game and movie violence desensitized children to violence it also trains them to be proficient killers. Much in the same way as military combat simulations teach soldiers how to kill more efficiently and reflexively.

This has a lot more to do with the modern phenomena of child killers then the guns themselves do. The guns have been in the home for hundreds of years here in the US. They were never taken to school and used to shoot other students until very recently in history.

That time frame is in direct relevance to the use of video combat death games and high realism video and movie violence.

Having had extensive military combat training myself I know what I am talking about here. These combat simulations are training kids to kill. That is the fact in my opinion. The gun has a part in it but it as I stated has been in the home for hundreds of years in America. Now suddenly it comes to pass that children are shooting each other and they are doing so under the influence of something. It is not just poor parenting it is combat training technology.

 

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I played Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and every other fighting game under the sun for years. I perfected myself at shooting games, first-person shooters. I am a huge fan of shooting games (though more so a fan of racing/strategy games!). I also was taught by my ex-Royal Navy grandfather (who fought at D-Day, I just found out) how to shoot a shotgun, handgun and 22.

Know why I never got the urge to kill my classmates (even when I was in a suicidal state)? Because my parents raised me to be more of a human being.



Blaming video games.... just parents trying to take the blame off themselves again.




Oh and by the way, if you have had extensive military training (and I'm not doubting this, mind you), you would of course have realized by now the HUGE difference in firing a gun and firing a nintendo controller.


And let me say you this. If you remove the video game, you possibly get a lesser chance of a kid being violent (though I still say it's a paernts duty, not the video game industry's, to instill respect and conscienceness and humanity into a child). If you remove the gun from the house, you get no shooting.

 

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betavoltaic

Look we have the same games and movies less guns and surprise less murders per 1000 head of population.

There are things inplace to protect us from cruption
They are called:

Elections
The separation of powers

we don't need anymore

and can i ask you
if the police are so corupt would you shoot a cop and do you think that would save you from death (you have the DP rember)?

 

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I think,...

That Betavoltaïc means this:

peace above me
peace below me
peace all around me

is a difference with:

kill war kill war kill war
kill war kill war kill
war kill war kill war kill
war kill war kill war

I think this creates a (perhaps minor?) difference in environment and cet,...nèh?

 

Fukushi

Now im REALLY confused

 

good versus evil

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

this to step up with non understanding the self,...
It is not simple because it just happens not to be so simple,...a man has to make an effort to understand.



firestarter

 

I was under the impression that the provision in the Constitution of the USA for the maintenance of personal firearms was included as a direct result of the war of independance.

The authorities wanted to have a militia ready incase the English returned and the standing army proved ineffectual.

In the current global climate, the US Army is more than capable of holding off the invading hordes.

This begs the question,
"Is it necessary to allow for the individual's possession of firearms?"

 

No one can know what tomorrow will bring

We can not know what the future will bring. Perhaps you should go back in the thread and read the words of the founding fathers who wrote the constitution. They said it best as far as why the second amendment gave the people to the right to keep and bear arms and further stated it "shall not be infringed"

What is right for today in a climate of such change will not be what is right tomorrow. The constitution is for all time. Small arms are but a small part of the weapons required to have a force to check the power of the central state. They are only a corner pin of the required arsenal.

The right to keep and bear arms was put in the constitution for 3 reasons. The first was to repel invaders, the second was to cause the central government pause if they decided to change the bargain and take more power from the states, the third was the personal right of self defense.

All 3 have been clearly expressed in the words of the very persons who wrote the constitution.

 

I just wonder what it is that scares the gun toting portion of the US's population so much that they feel the need to prepare themselves as a provisional army.

Have you that little faith in your country's capabilities?

True, there is the possibility that aggression may not be on an international level, but small-time thugs would have a much more difficult time arming themselves, and so ameliorate the need for personal defense in this context.

The fact that there have been amendments to the US constitution intimates that there is the provision for adaptation of same.

No charter should be so inflexible that it cannot be changed for the better.

 

Breach of contract in the constitution is alarming

Many of us in the US understand the sacrifices that have been made to provide us with our liberties and freedoms.

We the people have fought and died to preserve this living contract to govern ourselves this constitution. This is something that is instilled in many of us at a very early age. We have been taught by our fathers that we must preserve this contract at all costs in order to preserve the freedoms we hold so dear that we have for centuries given our lives to defend it.

What scares us is that fewer and fewer of our children are retaining this understanding and with this shrinking majority we will one day be the minority. Being a minority in the US means you can loose the freedoms by legislation that your fathers have fought and died to preserve.

This is frightening, to watch it slip away as the mass of the population are constantly reprogrammed to accept the changes to the fundamental nature of the contract for self government we have in the constitution.

The founding fathers knew such a day could come by one means or another and that is the reason that the second amendment is so clear.
"The People's right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

That is a very clear sentence and has been interpreted in several supreme court rulings to mean the personal right to bear arms shall not be infringed. No matter how much leaders in this country have said that the right to bear arms extended only to hunting rifles and target pistols the meaning is rather clearly indicating military arms as well. In the days of the writing of the constitution this distinction was not needed as all fire arms were pretty much the same.

This was the tactic of the Clinton administration. Clinton said many times as they banned the sale of assault weapons that the right to bear arms was not being infringed because we could still have (legitimate weapons) hunting rifles and target pistols in civilian hands but not military style weapons.

Clearly if their is a major difference in the abilities of the constitutional militia and the regular army the militia will loose without a chance.
This is the reason as these tactics were being used the American public went on alert. The sale of the now banned assault weapons and extended magazines went through the roof. In the first year that this restriction was proposed the sale of assault style weapons rose to 1.5 million units in a year from the average of 250,000 units per year. The sale of arsenal sized cashes of ammo rose to nearly 300% of the yearly average for the previous 5 years. The average assault weapon owner also has over 2000 rounds of ammunition to go with their weapons. Right now in the US there are over 50,000,000 military style weapons in civilian hands.

In order for the government to seize such a cache of weapons it would require a civil war. That is of course the intent of having this many weapons in civilian hands. If they try to take them it will mean a civil war and that will only happen if the second amendment is abandoned and thus our freedoms can no longer be guaranteed us force of arms.

Only the ability to make effective war on the central government will ensure that they will comply with the contract for self government. Trust can be abused. Distrust in the central government is at the center of the preservation of our freedoms.

In America it is like this; sure we will hire you for the job of President and Commander of the Armed forces but if you try to take more power than you are allowed by the constitution, such as in a crisis and then you don't want to give back those freedoms once the emergency is over, we will take them back by force if need be. That's the deal, and every President of this most powerful nation on the planet knows that this is in place to keep him in check.

Power Corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely. No one person on the planet has as much political and military power as the President of the United States for the most part. The only way to keep that power in check so the person does not loose their mind and decide to take over the world is if the people of the US themselves can stop him from doing so by revolution.

You should thank God every day that patriots in the US will not allow our president to take absolute power over the US. It insures the safety of the entire world in this way. This thinking is not just in the civilian population in the US. Many in the military think this way as well. They will work with the constitutional militia to retake the government and reestablish the Constitutional Republic if it is required of them.

Of course we pray this will never be required of us. We train and prepare fully hoping the day will never come that we must undertake this mission of self sacrifice but we must be prepared for this possibility just the same.

If you are a loyal subject of the monarchy you simply can not understand this type of thinking of course. It is understandable.

 

Two things I am curious about...

Does this mean you were also in the military?

Doesn't the USA president swear into office on the christian bible? Wuld that make him on god's side? And as a champion of the USA constitution, shouldn't you be supporting a complete separation of church and state? You know, not bringing religion into a political discussion as a factor?

 

military and God references

Yes I was in the US military and have an honorable discharge.
All men in my family have military service and many have died over the years in my family.

If the thank God reference offended anyone I apologize

 

It didn't offend me, I was just curious about your position. On one hand you use the christian god as sort of a factor in determining the freedom of the individual against federal authority, and on the other hand you support the constitution which seems to say that religion should have absolutely no say in politics.

The US system:
President is sworn in on the christian bible.
President is a christian.

USA constitution:
Separation of church and state.

Betavoltaic:
God is on the side of individuals being free from federal oppression.

I'm not saying I disagree with you or anything. I also think the state must be kept from absolute control of the individual. I'm just trying to piece together how it all works.

 

Don't make the strong weak ... make the weak strong!

The modern regime of science has everbody convinced that "order" is the best way to be, and that everything falls into one of the categories of "ordered" or "disordered".

So the hegemonies of our age have used the tool of Order to dominate and control the world, just as previous ages were able to use religion or personality. In fact, our regimes have achieved such an immense control over the arts of control and order, that it would be foolish to oppose them on that front, as you point out.

A chess master will beat a fencing master at chess, but will lose to him at fencing. If you wish to defeat the highest achievement of order and control ever realized by history, you cannot organize to do so. You will never be able to out-organize them. Search for another method.

As you point out, terrorism and cell-based resistance (affinity groups), which are completely un-organized, seem to be highly resistant to organized efforts of eradication. That's why the establishment is trying to hard to demonize terrorism ... because it cannot be beaten by force.

I agree that intentional suicide isn't the best way to go about things ... there are plenty of ways to die in a conflict without having to do it to yourself.

But at the same time, there are things that I would die for. I would die to defend my family. Everybody dies ... will you die as a hero or a coward? I'm no hero, but I stand up for what I believe in.

So when a US soldier dies in combat, he died "protecting democracy". When a terrorist dies, they propagandize him as "murderer and fanatic". That doesn't make sense ... logic tells me that men are driven to similar extremes by similar circumstances. It would seem to make sense that the US soldier and the terrorist are dying for similar reasons ... defending themselves and their nations.

So let's say that you completely disarm the world, and create an ethos where the use of violence is wrong. Then when ONE GUY comes along with a gun, and the willingness to use it, he will rule to world. If you create a police force to prevent such eventualities, then the police will rule the world. Let's face it, power corrupts.

I take the opposite tac. Imagine a world in which everybody had a small hydrogen suicide bomb, enough to take themselves out with a city. That would be a world with no angry people ... because angry people would blow themselves up.

You would then be loathe to call anybody names, or cut them off in traffic, or suppress them in any way, because ... if they are having a "bad day" ... they are going to take themselves out and you with them.

No more bullies, no more oppression ... we take the monopoly of power away from the government, and eliminate the dominance of the strong over the weak ... not by making everybody weak, but by making everybody strong.

 

The use of force and violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived.

That's a typical argument put forth by oppressed peoples and slaves who have experienced relatively little freedom. "Life as a slave is good. We are fed and taken care of. Our master defends us from violence; as long as we obey him."

I believe that the burden of proof is upon YOU to defend why it is that people should be deprived of ANY freedoms of ANY kind, even freedoms which might endanger other people.

 

Bring back the Wild West!

Do we owe the fact that we're not a nation governed by martial law to our right to bear arms? Do burglars think twice before entering a home for fear that it's inhabitants might be packing heat? Is it crucial that we arm ourselves against the invasion of a foreign aggressor? The right to bear arms is an ideal borne of the need for defense against foreign rule and oppression. A time when the use of violent force was neccesary to establish a new, independent nation. It's not clear how the ownership of firearms particularly handguns and other more "exotic" weapons are legitimately applicable or neccesary in society today. Regardless of the fact that a gun in a home is more likely to injure one of the inhabitants than a perpetrator, it just doesn't strike me as having any real practical application unless you happen to be a collector or hobbyist of some sort. Someone please inform me why our right to bear arms is essential to our freedom and way of life. I'm open to the possibilities though obviously skeptical.

 

This is great

And if you eliminate guns, wouldn't it be the same situation but with fewer guns around?

If owning a gun is criminal, then only criminals will own guns. Doh! Except for the police of course! THEY must have access to guns to fight against gun-toting criminals (including citizen-criminals who's only crime is owning a gun, because that's illegal). Oh, and the MILITARY, because the military MUST have guns -- it just wouldn't be an army without them. It would be like playing soccer without a soccer-ball.

[SARCASM]Wait a second ... aren't the police and military the forces that most countries use to forcefully oppress their peoples? Oh, I'm sure the citizenry could call for democratic reforms -- right? And the ruling elite will be happy to give them whatever they ask for.[/SARCASM]

 

I'm afraid that you're wrong on this one. There have been extensive studies, including studies by the military, about the role of video games in desensitization to violence. In fact, the military and police use a form of video game in training simulations ... yet another example of the real world slightly lagging behind the entertainment industry.

Video games MAY or MAY NOT increase the amount of violence that children perpetrate ... that is still under debate.

What is NOT under debate is the desensitization to violence. For example, it is EXTREMELY difficult for a person to point a gun at another person and pull the trigger, knowing that the other person will die.

Now introduce movies where we see people killing without mercy or hesitation almost constantly. Then introduce video games where the player (child or adult) can point a crosshair at a human target, and then "pull the trigger" (sometimes push a button, sometimes a real trigger).

The effect is that you eventually eliminate the basic human response against taking life. Then when faced with a real-life situation when you need to point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger, it is more likely that your video game conditioning will take over. Military training is largely intended to INTENTIONALLY overcome this natural resistance to killing and replace it with a conditioned response where the idea of "human other" is removed from the decision loop.

But, hell, I LOVE violent video games. I wouldn't have them banned or regulated for all the universe. I also love to play paintball.

This is where I agree with you COMPLETELY. So if video games are bad for a child's development, why don't the parents do something about it? And I don't mean tell the government to do something about it, I mean like talking to their kids, or paying attention to what their kids do on the computer and what they watch on the TV.

 

To be or not to be a federal agent

Adam,

Your line under your Avatar says you are from Australia. I am wondering if you also happen to work for the US government. Since every post you do you link in a graphic from publiclibraryofscience.org

This file resides on a federal government research center computer system www.lbl.gov by tying that graphic in every time you post you send the individual IP and other personal identifier information of every user or viewer of the thread to that federal government computer system.

By tying in the time stamp of the posts to the individual IP data thus derived you in essence give a detailed user report of this and every thread you post in using this graphic link to the federal government.

My question is this. Is the fact that you are tying in this graphic pulled off the federal government controlled server intended to send all of our individual IP data and other personal identifier information to the central federal authority?

One further question. If this is your intent is your being in this forum for the purpose of information collection for the intelligence services of the US government?

I just wonder about things like this.

If you are honestly doing this without any understanding of how this information might be used for the collection of intelligence information then I apologize for having ask the question.

 

CutterShane

WTF are you smoking?!

Absolutely. Fewer guns = fewer gun-related deaths. Very simple. Fewer dead or seriously wounded people is a good thing.

Actually, no. More countries rule by civlian consenus than by government tyrrany.

Betavoltaic

Yes, I am Australian. No, I do not work for the USA government, nor have I ever.

The Public Library Of Science was sarted by science writers from various magazines. They were basically fed up with the idea that only people who could afford subscriptions could gain access to science news. So they established the PLOS. Free science reports and such. As you can see by the IP address below, they seem to be on completely different servers. You'll also note that the image I use as the link resides on the PLOS server, not the LBL server.

www.lbl.gov = 128.3.7.51
www.publiclibraryofscience.org = 131.243.56.46
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/images/plos_sup_xs.gif

Now, if you want to know about your government getting IP addresses and such, well, tricks like that are simply not necessary. All they need do is install in the various ISPs some rather nifty packet sniffers, to see who is doing what and when. View the ISP connection logs, watch your packet sniffers to see what people are sending, et cetera.

Another thing. Such reports of activities by all sciforums users would have to come from the sciforums server to be any good. I sometimes go a week or more without using the internet. How could I possibly warn the USA government about possible threats in time? No. Without my constant presense, or at least the constant watch of my own computer over the sciforums server, such reports would have to come from software based on the sciforums server. And I doubt very much Porfiry allows that. (BTW: No, my computer is not that good, it's a crappy old AMD-200.) If not me, and not Porfiry, then I would, if I was the USA government, simply place sniffers on the closest server to Porfiry's, his ISP or whatever junction is nearest.

No.

Again, no. I was never very impressed with the USA's intelligence community anyway. Sure, they can get any info they want, but big deal. They just aren't my sort of people.