Quote of the day—Samuel Thomas Nichols

…[O]ne thing for sure is that this country needs to disarm along with the rest of the world. And, I do not mean just the citizenry, but the police and the military as well. Impossible, you say? No, but it would be difficult and will never happen unless people are willing to give up their greed, their lust for more than they need, their envy, their covetousness, and their gluttony.

In my view of reality there is no moral justification for the possession of firearms and I for one am sick of meaningless diatribes as: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” It is a meaningless phrase because the truth has always been: “People with guns kill people.”

Samuel Thomas Nichols
January 26, 2015
Blowing in the Wind
[Via email from Bob S.

Wow! Even the military! And how is the military supposed to function without guns? Just explosives, biological, and chemical weapons?

While his view of reality is almost for certain distorted by his nephew being shot multiple times by the police you still should never let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.—Joe]

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16 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Samuel Thomas Nichols

  1. A real fellow traveler, there. I’m surprised he didn’t toss in;

    “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”

    It would seem to well suit his outlook.

    • I’ve asked several Ron Paul Lib’tarians similar questions. The reaction is almost universal: angered silence. I’m too stupid for them to even try to explain the answer, which is apparently simple and obvious to them.

      As best I understand it, when they do mumble a few words under the breath. it is that ISIS wouldn’t exist but for our (the U.S., Israel, NATO and so) dirty dealings in the world. How DARE we use examples like ISIS when we are the ones who created them! Such criticism is never leveled against the military expansionist Soviets, for example, and so apparently the U.S. (along with her allies) is the Great Satan. Thus they seem to have an instinctual kinship with America’s enemies.

      Jessie Ventura, who is suing the widow of Chris Kyle, is an example of this phenomenon.

      It’s the Charles Manson defense. “YOU made me what I am…!”

      • Unfortunately, there are far too many libertarians who are incapable of coherently describing or arguing a position. Ron Paul is not all that good at it, and he’s better than many. Neil Smith is one who really does explain, that’s why I like to read what he has to say and why I quote him. You don’t have to agree with them — a lot of people do not — but you never have to worry that you don’t know what his position is, or why he holds that position.
        From my own libertarian viewpoint, I would say (as I believe Rand Paul did) that defense — self-defense first and foremost — is a basic right. Seeking out others in far away places is a different matter. Volunteering moral and hardware support for those oppressed by dictators is a good thing. Working for regime change in Syria, Russia, North Korea, all those are good things too. But I would do that by helping those who are there.
        I remember a Neil Smith novel in which one of the characters points out the U.S. Army is in 162 countries. I don’t know if that number is exact, but it feels plausible. It doesn’t make sense to me to spend that much of our money sending soldiers all over the globe, especially to places where the locals don’t care to defend themselves.

  2. “No, but it would be difficult and will never happen unless people are willing to give up their greed, their lust for more than they need, their envy, their covetousness, and their gluttony.” So, in other words, it will never happen, as humans by nature are a greedy gluttonous flawed species. Until someone (including the government) stops wanting to take away my things, using force if necessary, I will continue to bitterly cling to my guns to try and stop them.

  3. His “view of reality” is rather warped, unrealistic, ahistorical, and naive.
    I’m not sure what he means by “get along with the rest of the world,” but it appears to be synonymous with “surrender, become it’s bitch, and die horribly.”

  4. Indeed, if we could make the human species perfect in every way, removing all faults and sins, then yes, we would not need weapons. Of course if we could do that, weather weapons exist or not would be a moot point, since no one would ever use them for ill. If this individual had any brain at all he would see that making humanity perfect is the solution, not the removal of weapons, with the implicit truth being that as long as humanity is not perfect, good people will need weapons to defend themselves from evil, while evil will do whatever it can to posses the weapons to subdue good. He has all the information right there in his own words, and then jumps to the totally incorrect and illogical conclusion at the end.

    • My comment over there is in moderation:

      “So basically, if we can make the world perfect we can get rid of the weapons? I agree, but that is the thing, if humanity were perfect, weather weapons exists or not would not matter. If we were all perfect we could be surrounded by all the weapons imaginable and no one would get hurt, since no one would ever use them for evil. Implicit in that logic, however, is the fact that as long as evil exists in humanity weapons will be needed to defend against it, and evil will use them to further its own agenda.

      What happened to your grandnephew is tragic, but the fact is that he did everything he could to commit suicide by cop. From the details you have given, it seems the officers had no other option but to shoot. If your grandnephew had been a real gunman and the officers had not taken immediate action an officer or an innocent bystander could have been killed. Unfortunately people do not always have the luxury to identity if there is a real threat, or if it is someone just impersonating a real threat. You can lament the fact that your grandnephew made the choice to commit suicide, and I will sympathize with you, but placing the blame on the officers involved is heartless, and blaming the tools they used is illogical.”

      How many other comments are in moderation?

  5. Men are not angels. So long as one evil person exists and is armed, the rest of us have to be armed to have a semblance of freedom and security.

    The viewpoint of Samuel Thomas Nichols happens when you snort too many unicorn farts. Is he on the same planet? Is he even in the same galaxy as the rest of us?

    You know he forgot to include that everyone should have free health care, free education, free ice cream, and we should all join healing drum circles. The city of Berkeley is missing its town idiot.

    I bet he will sing a different tune from, “…there is no moral justification for the possession of firearms…” when a crack head kicks in his door and is about to end his life.

  6. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, they say.

    Yes, powerful people often take things away from less powerful people. And the way this is enforced is with the threat of violence, i.e. guns.

    So how does this wonderful person propose to disarm the entire country, simply because HE says we “need to”, “for sure”? Does he really expect Americans to surrender their firearms voluntarily? (They tried that recently in Connecticut and in New York, as I recall, and it ended with locals openly contemptuous of the new laws and the government that passed them. Nice going, guys.) Or does he expect people with guns to visit other people with guns and take their guns away by force? If so, what happens when everyone is disarmed except for a small select group, which suddenly realizes that THEY can call all the shots (literally) from now on?

    Buddy, I hear that you dislike living in a world that has guns in it. I’m sorry for you, I really am. We’ve lived in such a world for at least five hundred years… and that aspect of it is not going to change, not from your whining, nor from anything else.

    Some other time, let’s talk about why firearms were invented in the first place, and why it’s a GOOD thing that weaker people have access to them.

  7. Some people simply should not be allowed out in public without a guardian and
    close supervision. The truly scary thing is this moron is not alone in this insanity, there are countless others just as stupid….and we let them vote.

  8. Imagine there’s no countries
    It isn’t hard to do
    Nothing to kill or die for
    And no religion too

    John Lennon

  9. This is one of the few times where the person wanting to ban guns is refreshingly consistent. Most people who want to ban guns want to make exceptions for soldiers and police officers, as if (1) these people only have the best interests of society at their hearts, and will never do anything evil, and (2) this is sufficient for making sure that our society is secure from crime and war.

    It reminds me of the case that Jeff Snyder made about Leo Tolstoy’s pacifism: if you’re a true pacifist, you won’t resort to violence for anything; thus, in this circumstance, you cannot ban weapons, because such a ban would require weapons to enforce that ban.

    Of course, most people who claim to be pacifists aren’t true pacificsts: they are willing to send out the police and the army to stop that which they consider evil, even when they themselves aren’t willing to pick up arms.

    (As an aside, I consider most people who take their decisions to carry a gun seriously to be armed pacifists, in that they decide that they will do all in their power to prevent violent confrontation, but will fight back if necessary to protect innocent life. Indeed, as Jeff Cooper said, “One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that ‘violence begets violence.’ I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure — and in some cases I have — that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.”)

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