Freedom begets freedom

[Kulindahr]

I'm one of a small minority of people where two movements for individual liberty these days intersect. With one addition, it becomes three, in the much-used phrase to describe Republican politics: "God, guns, and gays". Let's leave out the God part, for the moment:

Here's an article that argues the remaining two go together -- not that they're partners (except as in me, where the two coincide), but that they're expressions of a single thing so that in a (very sociological) sense, they feed off one another: gay freedom furthers gun not because they're related, but because freedom begets freedom.

It's a great read -- and great in an indirect sense, that this article could appear where it did and not raise kilos of negative mail:


http://www.shotgunnews.com/2012/01/24/gay-pride-gun-pride/

 

[Kulindahr]

I don't agree. I think gay people should embrace the methods of Gandhi in resistance. Gun ownership isn't going to help me or any other gay person. I guess I just come from a different background so I don't really understand gun culture.

This sounds like you didn't bother to read the article.

Though I will state again the Pink Pistols' motto: armed gays don't get bashed.

 

[Kulindahr]

I did.

And that motto is wishful thinking. That group goes up against everything the LGBT community stands for. Pink Pistols reminds me of GOProuds and Log Cabin republicans...

Well, if you read it, you should address it.

Pink Pistols is part of the "LGBT community", and it stands for the same thing the rest does: wanting to be let alone in being gay so we can just live our lives like anyone else.

Though I'd like to find an organization where gay people learn to sword fight -- we could be the "Gay Blades".




Oh, BTW -- the Pink Pistols here are primarily Democrats with a couple Libertarians and a pair of Greens. We did have a token Republican for a while (guy who wouldn't vote for McCain because he was "too liberal" ).

 

[opinterph]

I wonder what Mr. Hunnicutt means by his reference to “black guns.” Is that term somehow related to “pink pistols?”

FWIW, I also note his suggestion that gun ownership has until recently been “transgressive” is not true here in my neck of the woods. Gun ownership is (and has been) the norm for much longer than recently.

[General Grant] also insisted that southern soldiers be allowed to keep their guns, horses, and mules so that they would be able to hunt for food and to rebuild their farms as they returned to civilian life. education.com

 

[bankside]

Why may I not construct a dungeon in my basement? I have a rational purpose for it: to contain people who put my life at risk by breaking-and-entering, and to make of them an example to others.

Surely if I can shoot people in self defence, I can imprison them. Yet the building codes oppress me and deprive me of this common-sense solution to everyday crime.

Gays who push trespassers into the oubliette don't get bashed.

 

[Stardreamer]

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them."
Ghandhi 1940 to the British People

"Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs... It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions."
1946

Ghandhi's philosophy while admirable is not for everyone. It means literally being willing to die for your cause. Even Ghandhi knew this and said if you did not have the courage to take that ultimate sacrifice, and many aren't, that self defense is a valid option.

However, Gandhi realised that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he believed everyone did not possess. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice, saying, "where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

 

[Stardreamer]

That's fundamentally misunderstanding his entire philosophy. He never said using violence and guns was an option. But he is right on one thing... it does take courage to believe in non-violence. Incredible amounts of courage. That's why I think gun culture is covering up for a lack of courage.

I think using the term gun culture is misleading here. It implies a homogeneous community of thought and mind that simply doesn't exist except as a small subset of those groups.

It may be a fine and courageous principle as Ghandhi suggested for the Jews in Nazi Germany to willingly walk into the ovens or for the British to meekly surrender to the Nazis. But the right to self defense is a natural right as enumerated in the constitution and natural law, if a group a gay bashers are coming for me and mine, I will not quietly lie down and allow myself to beaten to death simply to prove a point. I will not engage in violence unless it is inflicted toward me or another but I will use it protect a life. This approach has served me well with bullies in the past. I am sorry if my cowardliness in this disappoints you.

 

[Kulindahr]

I wonder what Mr. Hunnicutt means by his reference to “black guns.” Is that term somehow related to “pink pistols?”

I wondered at that myself. I think it's a reference to firearms that utilize black powder, like good ol' Dan'l Boone had.

FWIW, I also note his suggestion that gun ownership has until recently been “transgressive” is not true here in my neck of the woods. Gun ownership is (and has been) the norm for much longer than recently.

It's been true in a lot of places. A coworker of mine when I was struggling financially at OSU had moved from Vermont, where she'd had a job at a diner. Kids would come in on their bikes, after school, and sit their backpacks and guns at their chosen seats before ordering at the counter. No one thought anything at all of a 14-y.o. with a small caliber rifle, so long as someone older and known to be responsible was around. That might have been a 16-y.o. honor student, or a 20-y.o. big brother or sister. In a town of under 5k, everyone knew who was regarded as responsible for supervising. She couldn't understand how people in Corvallis would freak at someone biking along the highway with a rifle slung over his/her back and a pistol on the hip. She also thought it was really stupid to go by age (apparently some people in her town in their 30s and 40s weren't judged responsible supervisors), but considered that in a town where people are mostly strangers, there had to be some rule.

And when I lived in Colorado, it wasn't uncommon at all to see kids on four-wheelers zooming along the wild country with a rifle.

Though when kids where my sister briefly taught high school in eastern Oregon, middle school and high school kids regularly came to school wearing sidearms (checked in at the office), that made me do a double-take. The explanation was simple, though: many of those kids came through countryside where rattlers and wild cats (like mountain lions) weren't uncommon, and the older kids were expected to do any defending that needed done.

 

[Stardreamer]

I think it's a fine term that does accurately define those who own guns. Many people in other countries don't have such a culture. I don't believe a gun will help any gay person against bashers. It will solve nothing except make things worse. And I have been bullied significantly in my life. I just don't see where a gun would be part of the equation. If it is part of your equation, fine.

Actually it is not, outside of military service, I've never owned or used a gun. I will however use any force available to me in a life threatening situation and if there was a persistent threat I could not avoid I would likely obtain and practice with a gun if necessary.

A gun may complicate, resolve or do nothing in a violent situation, depending upon the circumstances but I think the odds are in favor that a group of gay bashing thugs with bats will reconsider their options if their intended victim produces a handgun. You can of course game the scenario a hundred different ways to make a point but there are far too many cases of violence being repelled by defensive use of a gun to say conclusively that it will solve nothing. It is not going to always prevent violence and may even make the situation worse but it greatly changes the dynamic in the defender's favor.

 

[Kulindahr]

I think using the term gun culture is misleading here. It implies a homogeneous community of thought and mind that simply doesn't exist except as a small subset of those groups.

It may be a fine and courageous principle as Ghandhi suggested for the Jews in Nazi Germany to willingly walk into the ovens or for the British to meekly surrender to the Nazis. But the right to self defense is a natural right as enumerated in the constitution and natural law, if a group a gay bashers are coming for me and mine, I will not quietly lie down and allow myself to beaten to death simply to prove a point. I will not engage in violence unless it is inflicted toward me or another but I will use it protect a life. This approach has served me well with bullies in the past. I am sorry if my cowardliness in this disappoints you.

I like this:

However, Gandhi realised that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he believed everyone did not possess. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice, saying, "where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

The onus of cowardice is on those being non-violent. Ghandi is saying it's easy to hide behind non-violence if you're a coward.

But to my main point: non-violence is a tool for mass movements; it has nothing to do with self-defense. Martin Luther King recognized that it was time for non-violence, and it was effective because it was aimed at the conscience of a society. Non-violence is free speech -- but self-defense has nothing at all to do with speech; the criminal preying on the weak doesn't care about conscience or society (as evidenced by the fact of being a criminal), and being non-violent won't deter him.

BTW, "gun culture" is a silly term, because in the hands of anti-gun folks it's a false generalization. There are people to whom firearms are about ballistics and the beauty of engineering, folks to whom they're history (I was working at collecting one of each of the main infantry weapons from the various belligerents in WWII until the cost of living intersected negatively with my income), folks to whom they're no different than golf clubs, folks who just like to put holes in things.... and generally, it's the latter that the term is used to indicate, suggesting that everyone with a gun is irresponsible and juvenile (which statistics show to be false; those who grow up in gun-using households where they're the third or later generation are far more law-abiding than the norm).


But Giancarlo skipped the point of the article, and I want to drag us back to it: a movement of freedom for one sort of thing apparently gives others the courage to fight for the freedom for their type of thing.

To put a sharp twist on it: the gay community has no business worrying about guns killing people until we manage to get a handle on AIDs killing people. With freedom comes responsibility, and that's no less true for gay than for gun.

 

[Kulindahr]

Actually it is not, outside of military service, I've never owned or used a gun. I will however use any force available to me in a life threatening situation and if there was a persistent threat I could not avoid I would likely obtain and practice with a gun if necessary.

A gun may complicate, resolve or do nothing in a violent situation, depending upon the circumstances but I think the odds are in favor that a group of gay bashing thugs with bats will reconsider their options if their intended victim produces a handgun. You can of course game the scenario a hundred different ways to make a point but there are far too many cases of violence being repelled by defensive use of a gun to say conclusively that it will solve nothing. It is not going to always prevent violence and may even make the situation worse but it greatly changes the dynamic in the defender's favor.

Superb way to put it!

And it happens over and over in society. Even if you take the laughably obtained figure of 200,000 instances of self defense a year, that's still a lot of times a firearm is brought out and results in stopping the criminal. Generally the figure is accepted that nine times out of ten, when a firearm is produced by an intended victim, the criminal backs down immediately (though I've seen contradictory figures on whether fleeing or surrendering is more common).

 

[bankside]

The main question is, what kind of culture routinely requires "self defence" involving lethal weapons?

Supplemental question, why live there?

 

[JB3]

I didn't skip the point of the article. I'm just saying it doesn't add up. Gay rights and gun rights are fundamentally incompatible. You can have courage to fight for freedom without guns.

In your opinion. Others here disagree.

 

[TheFireGod]

I prefer to use my hands and legs, maybe an improvised weapon. But I'm generally supportive of gun rights, though I'm not gonna keep using the outdated 2nd amendment as my reason, which as I see it, is something resembling how the Swiss Armed Forces does things.

And as for the Gandhi reference, look for another one. We remember Gandhi because he was standing up to the British rulers who actually cared about civility and what other European-people-ruled countries look at them.

He'd just be a statistic if he was standing up against the Nazis, Soviets, and the Iranian Shah's police. Guns or no guns, what we're fighting for and what he fought for were very different things.

 

[Stardreamer]

I didn't skip the point of the article. I'm just saying it doesn't add up. Gay rights and gun rights are fundamentally incompatible. You can have courage to fight for freedom without guns.

I can't see any combination of logic that can draw that conclusion, the two are completely different things not related to the other. One is related to your right to your own identity and associations, the other is related to the right of self defense. An individual's personal philosophy may not allow them to embrace both but the rights themselves do not interact directly so comparability to each other is irrelevant.

 

[Stardreamer]

The main question is, what kind of culture routinely requires "self defence" involving lethal weapons?

Hmmm...that would be all of them. Self defense is a natural right that all living things possess. So every individual in every culture has the right to defend themselves. Since almost any weapon (including their hands) used for the purpose of self defense could be lethal depending on the situation, the answer to your question is every culture.

Supplemental question, why live there?

You would live someplace where you couldn't defend your life if threatened?

 

[JB3]

Guns are not required nor necessary for self defense. Self defense is something that is a lot bigger then guns. I don't believe guns are required for freedom or self defense. And I don't see how the LGBT community can be at peace with those who want lenient gun laws.

Explain the last part. I'm curious how you are connecting them, as they are completely unrelated.

 

[Stardreamer]

Guns are not required nor necessary for self defense.

Correct but on the other paw they can be quite effective for that purpose

Self defense is something that is a lot bigger then guns.

Correct

I don't believe guns are required for freedom or self defense.

Correct but on the other paw they can be effective in pursuit of that purpose.

And I don't see how the LGBT community can be at peace with those who want lenient gun laws.

I don't see how the 'LGBT community' should care one way or the other as a community. One's opinion on gun laws has absolutely nothing to do with one's sexual identity/orientation.

 

[bankside]

Hmmm...that would be all of them. Self defense is a natural right that all living things possess. So every individual in every culture has the right to defend themselves. Since almost any weapon (including their hands) used for the purpose of self defense could be lethal depending on the situation, the answer to your question is every culture.



You would live someplace where you couldn't defend your life if threatened?

No; you're missing the point. We have a natural right to defend ourselves against tsunamis as well. But for some reason Calgary and Toronto and Chicago and Johannesburg and Beijing are really lax in their preparations….aaaaand yet nobody seems to care. In fact life is pleasant there, despite the complete failure to address the looming tsunami problahahahahaha. I can't it's too silly.

While I'm sure some people would risk living in Vancouver or Tokyo or Los Angeles because they feel that other factors would outweigh the risk of inundation, I don't understand people who are willing to risk living amongst risky neighbours. Keep your guns. And keep your neighbours. I won't have either.

 

[JB3]

No; you're missing the point. We have a natural right to defend ourselves against tsunamis as well. But for some reason Calgary and Toronto and Chicago and Johannesburg and Beijing are really lax in their preparations….aaaaand yet nobody seems to care. In fact life is pleasant there, despite the complete failure to address the looming tsunami problahahahahaha. I can't it's too silly.

That's funny, but it completely ignores his actual point.