A handgun is a gun that police use, that the military use but ordinary people do not use unless they’re out to kill somebody. There’s no reason to have a handgun.
…
The police should be able to, they see this guy standing in the street and they you know, looking at whatever, they should be able to frisk them and if they have a gun, that gun should be removed and they should go to jail.
Susan Martin
December 26, 2008
A conversation on gun control with Susan Martin, Mario Elia, Karen Ellis-Elia and Sean Daly
[Ignorant of the millions of incidents each year in the U.S. where handguns were used to protect innocent life Ms. Martin imagines a police state as being a better place to live. She lives in Canada where they already have censorship and a (never mind it has failed) gun registry. With those already in place she may get her wish sooner than she thinks. I think she should be careful what she wishes for.–Joe]
Update: They let my comment go through (comments were moderated):
I have a great deal of sympathy for those who have suffered such losses but there is Just One Question (https://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/12/14/just-one-question/) that needs to be asked before advocating more restrictions on firearms. That question is: “Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?”
Until that question can be answered in the affirmative those that advocate for more restrictions on firearms are actually advocating for an unjustified taking of freedom.
Update2: I left another comment (12/30/2008):
I find it very telling that those advocating for more gun control claim it will reduce “gun violence”. This claim is doubtful (the counter example of the U.K. experience is just one reason to doubt it) but furthermore they do not claim it will reduce violent crime. But by carefully choosing their words they lump praiseworthy violence in defense of innocent live in the same category as criminal acts. Those same carefully chosen words also overlook that the total violent crime rate can (and frequently does) increase when people are prevented from using firearms for self defense.
And also telling is the same advocates for gun control repeatedly refuse to answer Just One Question, “Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?”
Because they cannot answer this one question it shows that safety is not the objective of their advocating for increased restrictions on firearms. They have some other agenda which they are not sharing.
Until that question can be answered in the affirmative those that advocate for more restrictions on firearms are actually advocating for an unjustified taking of freedom.
Even if the question could be answered in the affirmative the restriction on freedom would still not be justified. Wouldn’t that more or less fall under the category of “giving up essential liberty for temporary security”?
Yes. You are correct. But that is a much more difficult argument to win. And since they can’t answer the question anyway it’s a better starting position for our side (IMHO).
And since they can’t answer the question anyway it’s a better starting position for our side
That’s a good point, one I’d never considered. No doubt another question they can’t answer is, if these people they don’t want to have guns are so dangerous, why are they still walking free?
They have more than censorship in Canada, Joe. In Canada, there is no equivalent of Miranda. You see, in contacts with police there, it is assumed you know your rights beforehand. The rights they read you are very similar to those that anyone whose seen “Law and Order” know well. But they are under no obligation to read them to you upon initial contact and questioning. Only once under arrest are they required to do so. Anything you say up to that point is admissible. Even if it is self-incriminating.
Gun ownership in Canada is a privilege. Never forget that. They can do whatever they want and do it without the protections we (supposedly) enjoy here.
“Gun ownership in Canada is a privilege.”
Correction; it’s a right that’s treated by their government as a privilege.
A right is a right, all around the world. Rights are rarely respected, it is true, but the act of violating a right does not transform that right into a non-right. You’re granting super-natural power to the violators. Rather, the act of violating a right (whether under the color of law or otherwise) transforms the perpetrator into a common criminal.
the pitoloero has a point in that, if preventing direct, immediate and obvious harm were the only objective, we’d seek to ban the wheel for example, as it directly results in orders of magnitude more death and destruction than personal weapons.
I use this comparison to prove that “safety” is far from being the objective of anti-gun bigots. If safety really were the objective as they claim, they’d, a) have bothered to have done some homework on the subject, which they clearly haven’t, and so, b) the safety Nazis would be attacking backyard swimming pools, buckets of water around small children, flammable building & household materials, and the automobile, etc.. They’d be setting up blogs to rail against the evils of electricity, or of bicycles. Guns wouldn’t hardly register on their radar. Hence, anti-gun activist leaders are poor liars at the very best.
One cannot stress this enough. How can anyone be so concerned about “safety” and not have bothered themselves with even the most rudimentary examination of the facts, to say nothing of our U.S. constitution, the history of its rationale and the discussion surrounding its creation?