Innocent Persons Resisting Arrest

[Winchester]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1306059226' post='2244448']
...

BTW, I don't know if this is real or not and I don't know if this applies in your country but I did read once that if you have a gun stored at home you are much more likely to have a family member killed by gunshot than if you don't keep a gun at home. Which makes sense to me, if you don't have a gun then their won't be an accidental shooting.
[/quote]
Thank you. I am not concerned with actual police procedures, but instead your opinion. I am troubled that you would advocate incarceration for the possession of a firearm, which violates no one's rights. Laws have a deterring effect on people. It is hard to say how many people would become killers without laws against murder. Even in an area like Somalia, the majority of citizens do not engage in violence. But I feel safe saying laws have a deterring effect on proscribed actions. To believe gun control is effective, I must believe that someone willing to murder people, sometimes people they do not know and in large numbers, will be stopped by a law against firearms. They might be inconvenienced, and I'm certain difficulty in procuring a weapon will keep many from ever arming themselves. I am certain gun control, if practiced with enough force, will have an affect. I am not willing to surrender that degree of liberty, however.

The abhorrence I have to incarcerating a man for carrying a firearm cannot be overstated. To imprison someone for the simple act of [i]owning [/i]a firearm violates human rights and human dignity. I support laws against unjust aggression. But possession is not unjust aggression. The overwhelming majority of gun owners do not go about murdering people. Until you proscribe gun ownership or control it and thus diminish the number of law-abiding citizens who hold weapons. I know many people who illegally carried firearms when the government violated their right to do so. None of them ever murdered anyone. Carrying a firearm does not make a man a murderer, and laws against carrying a firearm will succeed only in deterring law-abiding men from carrying arms.

Where I live, we are permitted by law to carry concealed with a license. License holders have not gotten in shootouts, have not murdered people over minor altercations or otherwise gone berserk, but there are many who opposed the carry permits on precisely those grounds. Gun ownership is illegal in Mexico, but the criminals obtain and use military grade weapons.

Apart from the effects, I reject completely your right to disarm me. You have no right. If you get everyone in the world to say I must be disarmed, then everyone in the world will be wrong. In your society, it would be better for me to be punished and jailed (with the ultimate threat of my death, unless you reject the notion that the police may use deadly force to make me comply) for owning a firearm. Not even for wielding it. Your position violates my privacy, that's inarguable. You do not even stop your state's authority at my front door. How horrific, that a weapon in my own home should be subject to your approval. It's not your home. I chose that scenario for the purpose of understanding just how far you would be willing to go in violating the private property of a man in order to enforce your opinion of what is proper to own.

The study to which you refer is probably the Chicago study, and they drew no distinction between criminals and lawful citizens, between legal or illegal killings. In addition, they did not distinguish between those who were killed with firearms in their possession or those who had one at home, but were not carrying.

You would disarm me because the actions of someone else. I am not that someone else. I have a family and I work and I pay my taxes. You would cause me harm when I do not cause you harm.

[Winchester]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1306178283' post='2244983']

In NZ, some guns are legal, but are uncommon, shootings are rare. People don't go into malls or schools and start shooting,
[/quote]
[url="http://www.ic-wish.org/WiSH%20Fact%20Sheet%20Mass%20shootings%20in%20Australia%20and%20New%20Zealand.pdf"]Mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand[/url]

[Winchester]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1306186604' post='2245046']

Untrained fools owning guns does nothing for the overall protection of the right to life. Because, not surprisingly, guns can be used to kill people by those with less-than-innocent intentions.
[/quote]
But until some "untrained fool" actually violates someone else's rights, you have no right to take his property or proscribe his right to purchase a firearm. It's simply none of your business. The vast majority of "untrained fools" do not kill people, even accidentally, with their firearms.

One side of the argument is supporting initiating aggression. And it's not the gun owners.

[The Shover Robot]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1306191560' post='2245090']
[url="http://www.ic-wish.org/WiSH%20Fact%20Sheet%20Mass%20shootings%20in%20Australia%20and%20New%20Zealand.pdf"]Mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand[/url]
[/quote]

[img]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c389/MontyZooma/the_more_you_know.jpg[/img]

[Amppax]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1306191792' post='2245095']
But until some "untrained fool" actually violates someone else's rights, you have no right to take his property or proscribe his right to purchase a firearm. It's simply none of your business. The vast majority of "untrained fools" do not kill people, even accidentally, with their firearms.

One side of the argument is supporting initiating aggression. And it's not the gun owners.
[/quote]

right prevention is bad

[Winchester]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1306192340' post='2245101']
right prevention is bad
[/quote]
Disarming me does not prevent murder. I am not a murderer.

[img]http://endlessinnovation.typepad.com/endless_innovation/images/pre_crime.jpg[/img]

Edited May 23, 2011 by Winchester

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1306192340' post='2245101']
right prevention is bad
[/quote]
prevention that violates peoples rights...yes it is bad.


I can prevent the transmission of hivv by killing everyone engaged in extramarital sex too, but that doesn't make it right.


Is that an extreme example sure, but it makes the point. Prevention is a watchword for people who would violate the rights of others,and it has been used over and over agian to justify it.


Cars are rexponsable for many more deaths than guns, but no one requires me to be trained in its use, or be licensed to simply OWN one, or poseess it, or keep one on my own property. To use one on the public street is a simply proceedure, with a very inexpensive licensing prodecure. one which requires no formal training and only a very minimal level of proficeintcy.


Yet guns, which are responsable for many fewer deaths and a orders of magnitude less injury and property loss and are much less likely to accidentally hurt anyone are what is targeted?


lets look at some numbers...


in 2007 617 people died of accidental gunshot wounds, in the entire USA, there were, in that same year 15,698 trackable injuries ( visited an emergency room or other medical facilities) from none fatal firearms accidents. This is out of 300,000+ people.
or.04% of the nonfatal hospitalizations in that year.


In 2005 there were approxamently 6,200,000 auto accidents 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed.
( I didn't cherry pick these years, they were just the most recent of each I could find decent data on.)

There are at least as many guns in the US as cars. Private gun ownership accounts for almost an equal amount as all vehicles in the US, that is not including , Poilce, National Guard and military firearms, but does include their cars.


Why exactly are we worried about gun control?

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1306193104' post='2245108']
Disarming me does not prevent murder. I am not a murderer.

[img]http://endlessinnovation.typepad.com/endless_innovation/images/pre_crime.jpg[/img]
[/quote]


And if you were, taking your firearms would not prevent it anyway, as if you couldn't kill someone just as dead with an ax, or a pipe or a crossbow.

Or tat you couldn't make a gun with some pipe and some simple tools.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1306202197' post='2245187']
And if you were, taking your firearms would not prevent it anyway, as if you couldn't kill someone just as dead with an ax, or a pipe or a crossbow.

Or tat you couldn't make a gun with some pipe and some simple tools.
[/quote]
I believe the problem in evaluating this is that Americans are infected with pragmatism, including myself. It so happens that my affinity for firearms leads me toward Catholicity in this regard.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1306201898' post='2245185']
prevention that violates peoples rights...yes it is bad.


I can prevent the transmission of hivv by killing everyone engaged in extramarital sex too, but that doesn't make it right.


Is that an extreme example sure, but it makes the point. Prevention is a watchword for people who would violate the rights of others,and it has been used over and over agian to justify it.


Cars are rexponsable for many more deaths than guns, but no one requires me to be trained in its use, or be licensed to simply OWN one, or poseess it, or keep one on my own property. To use one on the public street is a simply proceedure, with a very inexpensive licensing prodecure. one which requires no formal training and only a very minimal level of proficeintcy.


Yet guns, which are responsable for many fewer deaths and a orders of magnitude less injury and property loss and are much less likely to accidentally hurt anyone are what is targeted?


lets look at some numbers...


in 2007 617 people died of accidental gunshot wounds, in the entire USA, there were, in that same year 15,698 trackable injuries ( visited an emergency room or other medical facilities) from none fatal firearms accidents. This is out of 300,000+ people.
or.04% of the nonfatal hospitalizations in that year.


In 2005 there were approxamently 6,200,000 auto accidents 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed.
( I didn't cherry pick these years, they were just the most recent of each I could find decent data on.)

There are at least as many guns in the US as cars. Private gun ownership accounts for almost an equal amount as all vehicles in the US, that is not including , Poilce, National Guard and military firearms, but does include their cars.


Why exactly are we worried about gun control?
[/quote]




ooops, that should be 300,000,000 + people

[MissScripture]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1306188238' post='2245062']
Actually antibiotics are not controlled substances, they most certianly can be bought and sold with out a prescription. This is a common myth, but it simply is not true.

Pharmacies wil not usually sell them to you without a prescription, but it is quite legal to buy and sell them. Back when I was raising Great Dames Idid it all the time. Believe it or not,Ihad more than one prescription from walgreens that was from the same lot of production as those I bought for my dog.

That antibiotics lose thier efficacy when overused is not a relevent arguement.... unless you can show that people are developing a resistance to high velocity lead projectiles do to their over use.

The fact is, that protecting your life is an intrical part of the right to life.THus, you have the basic human right to possess what is needed to protect it. That does not mean it must be supplied to you ( I know no one said it did,but I am heading off that line of arguement now) it means you have the right to aquire it and own it.

Over all protecton? what does that mea anyway... one individually has the right to defend ones own life. THis right is not dependent on any corporate right or overall right, it is an individuals right.
[/quote]
My brother told me that in NYC they have a problem with people going to petstores and getting the antibiotics sold for fish, and using those. The problem is from the fact that they don't know dosages and get sick from taking too much or stay sick from taking too little. He did consider doing this, however, when he had a fever for 17 days straight and no one would give him ANYTHING for it.

More on topic: I live in an area where the vast majority of people are hunters. You try to take their guns and there WILL be bloodshed! Not to mention, if you took away the ability to hunt, that would hurt a lot of people economically. And as was previously stated, it IS a matter of safety in rural areas with lots of wild animals and not so many people. I'm not sure I want to go at it with a bear or a coyote using a knife...

[MithLuin]

Chill, guys. In the town where I grew up, everyone owned a gun. (Or rather, I cannot think of a family who did not, though probably there was [i]someone[/i] who didn't have one.) School's a bit empty on the first day of hunting season. So, no, I'm not against people having guns. I have, however, heard plenty of stories of people doing stupid stuff...that is worrisome, as it tends to get other people hurt.

As far as I know, the only person who got killed with a gun in my (very small) town was a man who committed suicide with his own shotgun.

No, I don't really want to think about how he accomplished that.

In my college town, a teenager did some target practice for fun. Kid didn't realize that bullets [i]travel[/i]. And yeah, he hit someone too far away for him to even see - a college kid walking away from a football game. His victim died.

A friend of our family growing up owned many weapons, not all of them legal. He shot them off in his backyard out in the middle of nowhere. He owned about 15 mean dogs, so the chance of someone wandering onto his property by accident was basically nil. He lived in a converted boxcar. So...yeah, he's eccentric. One day, he put the wrong caliber shot in one of his guns and it exploded in his face when he pulled the trigger. He was lucky not to be wounded seriously. Why did that happen? Red shells in one pocket, yellow shells in another....combined with drinking. I don't want to speak ill of the dead, so I'm not going to call him an idiot, but that was at the very least...not smart.

My sister's Marine wife friends freak out when their husbands decide that the best way to protect the family while they are deployed abroad is to leave a loaded gun in the home with the safety off. And rightly so, because with a bunch of young kids running around, that is a recipe for disaster. Obviously Marines are highly trained in how to care for their weapons, so they are quite comfortable around them. I just think that other gun owners should have at least basic levels of training in gun safety.

And yes, you'd have to be pretty stupid to try a home invasion in a town connected to a military base, knowing that most everyone has a loaded gun in the house and knows how to use it. Doesn't stop people from stealing things out of cars, though. Nor does it mean that there are no shooting deaths in [url=http://www.jdnews.com/articles/shooting-65780-hooligan-thursday.html]Jacksonville, NC[/url] just because nearly everyone is armed, either.

Baltimore's newspaper kept a running death toll of US soldiers in the war in Iraq when it began...and it kept a record of homicides in the city (not just shooting deaths) from the beginning of the year. They were about neck-and-neck for the first three months, with roughly a death a day...both in Iraq and in Baltimore. Gun safety means not only knowing how to use the gun without hurting yourself or someone else...but also having people who won't use them to harm themselves or others.

Anyway, attitudes about guns are likely to be very different in rural and urban areas, and also very different in places like Virginia and Texas vs New Zealand and France. This thread wasn't really about gun laws, so much as whether or not you should resist arrest physically or with a weapon...or by running away...or by dealing with the injustice through the legal system. My vote is for the legal system. I'm not going to shoot someone who is doing his job in good faith and acting on the best information available to him and deprive his family of a husband and father simply because I don't want to spend any time in handcuffs. True, the only time I've been in a cop car was when an officer gave me a ride home after I wrecked my car and couldn't get ahiold of anyone to come pick me up. It's not like I've ever been a suspect in a crime.

And as for cars...yes, they are dangerous. And we do make rules about who can drive them and have penalties for people who do not obey basic rules. You can go to jail for driving drunk, even if you don't kill anyone.

Peace out!

Edited May 24, 2011 by MithLuin

[Amppax]

I guess my whole problem with this (resisting arrest) is the fact that it is placing one individual's rights over another's. Who is to say who's rights come first?



*Note: this may not make sense to anyone but em

[Amppax]

I guess my whole problem with this (resisting arrest) is the fact that it is placing one individual's rights over another's. Who is to say who's rights come first? In resisting arrest, a person is asserting their own rights, but in doing so may/do violate the rights of others. How is this a better or more moral solution?

Edited May 24, 2011 by Amppax

[MithLuin]

‎"Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought." - Blessed Pope John Paul II

I think the answer is you ask God. He might be very happy with allowing the blood of the martyrs to water the tree of faith. You just have to make sure you aren't the one creating the martyrs.