This is why you don't ban automatic weaponsFollow

Are you aware of how how ridiculous and arrogant you sound?

"I value my own bodily health more than my, my wife's, and children's lives. I'm going to 'defend' them and myself by getting them killed, whereas doing nothing at all will result in them living." Even without taking the lives of the of into account at all, if you're operating under the assumption that resisting will get the victims killed, and not resisting will not get them killed, then it's idiotic to resist.

If of course you believe that you can legitimately defend your family and prevent both your and their deaths, then that's a different story, but that's a highly different reason than the pure machismo of some fight or die ideal.

I'd take a completely different tack on this and suggest that fighting for gun control laws in order to prevent a citizen from being able to defend himself against an mob is in no way representative of a "greater good".

The greater good is served by allowing individuals to feel that they are to some degree in control over their own lives. It's never going to be perfect, but IMO that's a better path to social "good" than protecting the rights of mobs of criminals to run around beating up random people.

It's somewhat implied given that the topic was about (or became at that point) about whether an individual right to own firearms existed. While mowing the crowd down with an UZI is an extreme example, I'm pretty sure Xsaru's response would have been similar if Varus had simply been advocating being able to carry a pistol for protection.

I was responding to the idea that it's somehow better to allow someone to be victimized by a mob of people than allowing that person a weapon with which to defend himself. The size and type of weapon is largely irrelevant (except maybe nukes, for somewhat obvious reasons).



You certainly implied it though. Or maybe you could clarify exactly what you meant by "This is why we don't have individual people with threatened families making these decisions". I took that to mean decisions about the ability to have a firearm with which to protect them (ie: gun control laws), but maybe you meant something else? I'd love to hear it...

Don't you think that if the father had easy access to a gun to protect himself, so would the mob. And overall the situation would have ended much worse, with deaths on both sides? And possibly some bystanders too. Doesn't seem like a solution to me.

Possibly, but there is no guarantee that, unopposed, the gang won't torture or actually kill you for not standing up to them. If I had a shotgun near me I'd yell at my family to get into the house and open fire. If they don't scatter well, hope you have some extra cartridges. If you do die, with your children in the house calling the police by now, I can't say that such a death is a bad way to go.

You protected something valuable to you, asserted your will against the world in an expression of beauty.

Well, this is easily tested. Xsarus?

Ironically, the same reason why nukes would be a bad idea is, at a much smaller scale, the same reson why atuomatic weapons are a bad idea. Most of the rounds are going somewhere besides into the target.

I meant that the "What if your family was about to DIE!!" argument is always a ****-poor one whether we're talking about gun control or wiretapping or torture or whatever. It's just a plain shitty argument

I thought that was pretty obvious.

Hi! Welcome to False Dilemma Land! We'll have someone take your bags shortly and hope you enjoy your stay.

Jophed,



Well except if you're surrounded by people willing to beat you to death because of the colour of your skin. Wonder if that family thought it was a "false dilemma" while those thugs were kicking the sh*t out of them?


Samy,



I think you misunderstand the word "preemptive". Feel free to check dictionary.com

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about rampaging hordes engaged in raping, pillaging and looting?

'Cause none of those things were in the story.

Jophed,

Actually I'm using real examples to prove my points. Do you think that guy who had his head smashed in would have liked to have had an automatic weapon?

All rioters should be shot. Let's just get that out there right now.

If you want to talk about riots, there's not much a single person with a machine gun could do. He'd probably kill a bunch of people and then get killed and the riot would get worse. This is completely different from the story, and from any self defense. The correct approach to a riot is to get the hell away, and let the police deal with it. I absolutely do not want groups of civilians with overpowered guns walking the streets enforcing justice. That is not their role. Also protests could easily become riots if some idiot with an AK-47 decided they were being threatened and started gunning down people.