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Originally Posted by Mekanik
To a certain degree we're all statists. We pay taxes, we want a government to maintain certain basic services and rewards; some of us have different definitions as to what services the government should supply. That is also another level of debate.
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It is not valid, IMO, to argue that consent to any level of control makes one a Statist. That is both untrue and misleading. Conservatives are not anarchists.
That is like shoving a hose down someone's throat and then telling him not to complain because, after all, he did ask for a drink of water.
Gun control cannot survive a movement toward small government. Conversely, gun control (as well as an endless list of other controls) is inevitable for a Statist. It has always been thus. It is also logical.
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There's some facts that need addressed right there. we will not be able to do that by emotional arguments, comparing pro-control. pro-abolishment people to dictators. I'd rather get those middle people on board who are reasonable as opposed to drive them away with our slogans and hyperbole. Let the guys on the other side do that; it'll only drive the reasonable right to us.
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I have read many pages of facts and have myself posted many pages of facts demonstrating quite clearly that gun control is counter-productive. All of that is factual. It is also a fact that tyranny cannot exist without gun control. That is also a fact.
We have every right to question - and should question - why any government would insist on controlling the private ownership of guns in the name of public safety when such controls always result in either no measurable benefit at all or make things worse. Dr. Langmann's study in Canada was the more recent of these scholarly studies.
When those who hold, or seek, power persist in arguing that our surrender of some of our freedom will result in a better society despite failure after failure and despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, is there not some point where you begin to question their real motives? It seems to me that you must - unless you believe they are cretins. I do not. Gun Zombies are many things; stupid is not one of them. They need to be outed.
None of that is a "slogan", although I do agree it sounds odd to people who are used to a steady diet of anti-gun propaganda.
I would agree that we ought not to raise our voices, but that's it. We decide to either tell the truth or not. It's that simple. It will take a time for the truth to sink in, yes. People who are frightened lose some of their capacity to hear. If the fear is strong enough, they go deaf. I have seen this happen in urgent circumstances and I believe it also happens when the fear has been cultivated over years. Fear is fear. We must be patient. But we must never shirk from the truth of history and experience and the cold, hard facts that are available to us.
I think Rugatika, for instance, has it exactly right. If we have any sort of registry, it ought to be a registry of those who are banned from owning a firearm (with good reason). The rest of us have a right to do as we like, the right to the means of self-defence and the right to be left alone and not tracked.
Waiting periods, training, prescribed storage and background checks all sound nice, but they are all proved ineffective. That seems counter-intuitive but it is true nonetheless. I presume the occasional benefit that one would expect should come from those measures is more than offset by frustrating those who were not able to purchase or use a firearm immediately in anticipation of an attack or some violence and therefore were unarmed when the attack came. That is only an educated guess on my part as I have seen no study that would explain why those nice-sounding measures either have no beneficial effect or cause more death and victims of violence. There is no free lunch.