Guns vs crime in Brazil

[cardcounter0]

You had me, until that government part at the end.

To really use guns to protect yourself against the government, you need to also have the proper location.
A real remote area, like Idaho, a self-sufficent cabin on top of a hill, hard to surround. Kind of like the set-up Randy Weaver had. Whoops. His wife got it right between the eyes. Well ....

Too small a group. What you need is a big compound and a lot of people standing guard, sitting on a huge cache of weapons. Yeah, that's it. Kind of like what they had in Waco. What a minute, that didn't turn out too well either.

Hmmmm... Trying to think when the last time a small bunch of fanatics defeated the local government.

[nothumb]

Hi M,

I do believe that whatever government is in existence, or whatever formal organization exists for mutual aid, should not have too much power. However, I think rather than believing that we need to 'starve the beast' down to its most basic functions, we should localize government to a much greater extent. Local government can perform a much greater range of functions (if people participate constructively, which often they do not because local government is basically a feudal system in many parts of this country) efficiently and fairly.

I do not believe that the government you describe would protect me adequately. It would not protect me from capitalism. I mean this in all seriousness.

NT

[natedogg]

You are mistaken.

There is a REASON that totalitarian governments confiscate all the guns from their citizens.

Hint: It's not for their own safety.

natedogg

[MMMMMM]

"I do believe that whatever government is in existence, or whatever formal organization exists for mutual aid, should not have too much power."

OK.

" However, I think rather than believing that we need to 'starve the beast' down to its most basic functions, we should localize government to a much greater extent."

By reducing federal government to its basic functions, we would allow state and local governments to take a more active role--if the voters so desire.

" Local government can perform a much greater range of functions (if people participate constructively, which often they do not because local government is basically a feudal system in many parts of this country) efficiently and fairly."

Yes, which is why I think more power should be left to the states (and less to the federal government).

"I do not believe that the government you describe would protect me adequately. It would not protect me from capitalism. I mean this in all seriousness."

Depends on what you mean by "adequately."

It's not a safe world or a safe universe no matter what. Government cannot ever protect you from much and expecting it to do so is a great mistake (which mistake is compounded when people try to force government to provide "protection").

"Protect adequately", to me, means some degree of protection from those who would try to usurp my rights to life, liberty, and private property--and to protect against foreign invasion. Asking government for any further protection is sort of like asking the wind to protect you--except that when you give government power to attempt some of those things, you run great risk and will probably obtain nothing but sorrow for your efforts. Government rarely cedes power once obtained.

[MMMMMM]

A few exceptions do not invalidate a general principle.

An well-armed citizenry is a deterrent to a government or military coup, and a deterrent to foreign invasion as well.

Look at how much trouble we are having in Iraq, and Iraq is only the size of California. Do you think the U.S. military could ever take over and hold the USA, hypothetically speaking? The holding of ground is harder than the capturing of it, if the populace is armed. An unarmed population, however, can be very easily held, controlled, or killed at will.

Stalin, Hitler and Castro all disarmed their populations and look what happened then.

[cardcounter0]

I've seen pictures of Iraq with people walking around with RPGs, gernade launchers, automatic weapons, mortors, rockets, hand gernades.

Now if you contend the US ARMY couldn't take and hold the US with its puny non-automatic sporting type weapons, what chance do we have in Iraq? Why are we there? We can't win. We can't enforce our will or our idea of democracy on those people. They are armed. Better call Bush and let him know.

My post ended in a question which you failed to answer. If the situations I posted about where just exceptions to the general rule --- WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME A SMALL GROUP OF CITIZENS DEFEATED A GOVERNMENT FORCE? Must be a lot of situations where it happened. It's a general principle. Let's see - The pologimist's in Utah. Whooops. Didn't work. Starved out and leader committed suicide. The wackos who declared their little patch of Texas independent. Nope.

I know, maybe its not small arms weapons. Some rag-tag milita made a huge bomb and blew up a Govt. Building in Oklahoma -- whooops! That didn't get them very far, did it?

Once again -- WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME A SMALL GROUP OF CITIZENS DEFEATED A GOVERNMENT FORCE?

[MMMMMM]

You're right, we can't hold the ground indefinitely in Iraq--on our own, that is. We will need for the moderate Iraqis to be able to do a lot of that themselves. Hopefully, they will be both capable and willing at some point in the not-too-distant future.

I wasn't trying to argue that a small armed group could resist a government very long or very effectively. You'e right, they can't. However a large armed populace can make things very difficult, costly, and ultimately not worth it for those who might try to take over by force at some point in the future (hypothetically speaking).

[cardcounter0]

Last I checked, Iraq was a large armed populace. Where are they going to ship in those moderate Iraqis from? Are those the guys that were supposed to greet the troops with flowers? Seems they haven't made it to the scene yet.

[CORed]

One person (or 100) against the government is always going to lose. However, an organised guerilla resistance has at least a little chance of succeeding with guns (some shoulder launced missiles would be really nice, too) and no chance of success without them. I'm certainly not advocating armed resistance now. There are a lot of things I don't like about the government, but as long as we have the ability to "vote the rascals out", I don't think violent rebellion is justifiable. OTOH, if George Bush declares in October the the elections are postponed indefinitely due to the threat of terrorism and he will retain power until the "war on terror" has been won, I will be joining the armed resistance.

[Gamblor]

refers to nothing more than change.

Rightism prefers the status quo.

Nothing to do with ideologies.