Ayn Rand on Gun Control

[Brant Gaede]

I own a 12-gauge tactical shotgun for inside the house self defense. I will soon buy a handgun I can easily carry concealed. As I wrote over thirty years ago in a letter published in Reason magazine, if I have a right to defend myself, I have the right to defend myself with something. "Sin loi," to the bad guy.

--Brant

[caroljane]

I own a 12-gauge tactical shotgun for inside the house self defense. I will soon buy a handgun I can easily carry concealed. As I wrote over thirty years ago in a letter published in Reason magazine, if I have a right to defend myself, I have the right to defend myself with something. "Sin loi," to the bad guy.

--Brant

Fair enough. I have never thought of you as a civilian but as a soldier.

[Brant Gaede]

My right, your right, anybody's right.

--Brant

[Dglgmut]

but it will take longer and more planning, and it will be harder to kill the bystanders.

So planning is a deal breaker for people who go on shooting sprees? Good to know.

I mean, they planned up to the point where they shoot themselves, but dammit if they can get a gun legally, eh?

[caroljane]

My right, your right, anybody's right.

--Brant

To kill should not be anyone's right.

[Brant Gaede]

My right, your right, anybody's right.

--Brant

To kill should not be anyone's right.

Why is that?

--Brant

[william.scherk]

Rand was right on gun control, I wager. And Carol is right to think that this is a "price tag" issue at some atavistic level. That the price for gun freedom is the occasional awful ambush.

I find that support for the well-armed militia amendment is primary because personal. It is someone's possession that is to be controlled, not a shooter. It is somebody's home-protection locker that is to be outlawed, not the crazy spree killers. It is a them and it is an us.

The other place where Carol is correct is having each child trained and armed. Surely this is easy to do. The freedom to responsibly use firearms (including the use for prevention and protection) as part of basic civil rights can be extended to the young. But before that happens, arm the Principals, reception staff, janitors, hall monitors, teachers, food service workers and crossing guards.

Frankly, nothing, no amount of talk about guns will change the landscape, to my eyes. No more gun control in the USA, no matter the mass shooting.

Still on the subject, I had never before looked at the history of the amendment, I am sorry to say. I now know that there was a whittling down (and a later split) of the amendment. These were the first, second, and last voted (from Wikipedia):

• The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.

• A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.

• A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Another bit I found shed more light on what the 'well-regulated' militia was in those days and what it meant in the aftermath. It looks like police were not yet an armed entity themselves.

On May 8, 1792, Congress passed "[a]n act more effectually to provide for the National Defence, by establishing an Uniform Militia throughout the United States" requiring:

[E]ach and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia...[and] every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.

If a semiautomatic weapon brought to a school kills more than a knife would, and a situation where it was extremely difficult for a shooter to get hands on a semi-automatic might prevent greater death tolls, is it time for America to talk about 'regulating' its civilian militia?

Nope. Nope. Not now and not ever.

Edited December 16, 2012 by william.scherk

[anthony]

I refuse (or at least try to resist) to get drawn into the numbers game so beloved of our sensationalist press and media. We are shown a concentration of deaths in one place, at one time, by one perpetrator - using one means of killing - and we go a little crazy. Many (each according to his own default-line) make a quick and self-righteous moral assessment: It's guns, it's mentally-deranged people, communists ...

How many people died around the world on this same day. How many children? (Though I hesitate at my own distinction.) But each is an individual death, affecting another individual personally, who is left forever looking for a reason, a cause. Did anyone else notice? How many individuals died 'unnecessarily'; or quietly; or accidentally; or brutally, on that day?

Ban autos. Ban tsunamis. Ban famine. Ban airplanes. Ban hatred.

Ban disease. Ban irrationality. Hell - ban reality.

Whatever gave us the notion life is secure and certain? God, or - government? Well they lie, and more of either will make it less so.

[Brant Gaede]

To evaluate guns in American society a lot more data is required than from any horrible tragedy, the particulars of which are still up in the air. First the bastard supposedly used an assault rifle, then he used two handguns. First his mother was a teacher at the school there, then she was killed at home. I did then stop reading about it. I did stop watching the tv about it. I simply couldn't stand it any more.

--Brant

[Selene]

Divorced. .Mother was allegedly an avid gun collector. Apparently receiving $250,000/year in alimony.

Son, allegedly autistic [brother's statement].

Apparently forced his way into the school by breaking into a window.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simple precautions could have stopped him in his tracks.

1) No alarm system to detect breaking and entering by an intruder;

2) No video system in the halls. No properly trained and armed security personnel; and

3) 27 deaths.

______________________

Pretty simple choice to invest in the first too and save the result of the 3rd.

[Selene]

I'd like to hear Bob"s take on the following:

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, a milder form of autism. People with the disorder tend to function poorly socially but can be highly intelligent.

If he did have Asperger's, his lack of sensation could be related to the disorder, said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. People with Asperger's can be overly sensitive to things like touch, noise and pain, or sometimes under-sensitive, she said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, a milder form of autism. People with the disorder tend to function poorly socially but can be highly intelligent.

If he did have Asperger's, his lack of sensation could be related to the disorder, said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. People with Asperger's can be overly sensitive to things like touch, noise and pain, or sometimes under-sensitive, she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/school-adviser-gunman-loner-felt-no-pain-235416864.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CcE4s1QKj4A0YfQtDMD

A...

[Selene]

I keep forgetting that we no longer do "journalism" in the US.

Here is how the Daily Mail presents the story:

One of Lanza’s former classmates spoke of his ‘noticeable decline’ after his parents’ divorce. ‘He was a loner at school and hyper intelligent,’ he said. ‘But in recent years he disappeared off the radar.

‘The word is that he was badly affected when his parents split and that might be what pushed him over the edge.

‘He was always weird but the divorce affected him. He was arguing with his mother. He was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.’

Father: Peter, a wealthy executive for General Electric, who is believed to earn $1million a year, moved out of the family home in 2006

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248782/Adam-Lanza-How-classmates-remember-genius-turned-heartless-killer.html#ixzz2FEdMt8m4

[BaalChatzaf]

I'd like to hear Bob"s take on the following:

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, a milder form of autism. People with the disorder tend to function poorly socially but can be highly intelligent.

If he did have Asperger's, his lack of sensation could be related to the disorder, said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. People with Asperger's can be overly sensitive to things like touch, noise and pain, or sometimes under-sensitive, she said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, a milder form of autism. People with the disorder tend to function poorly socially but can be highly intelligent.

If he did have Asperger's, his lack of sensation could be related to the disorder, said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. People with Asperger's can be overly sensitive to things like touch, noise and pain, or sometimes under-sensitive, she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/school-adviser-gunman-loner-felt-no-pain-235416864.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CcE4s1QKj4A0YfQtDMD

A...

There are aspies with self control and aspies without self control. Just like you Normals.

I don't go around killing little children with a firearm sitting in a classroom. I build guidance systems for cruise missiles to do a much more thorough job on children in the Middle East.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

I'd like to hear Bob"s take on the following:

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, a milder form of autism. People with the disorder tend to function poorly socially but can be highly intelligent.

If he did have Asperger's, his lack of sensation could be related to the disorder, said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. People with Asperger's can be overly sensitive to things like touch, noise and pain, or sometimes under-sensitive, she said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, a milder form of autism. People with the disorder tend to function poorly socially but can be highly intelligent.

If he did have Asperger's, his lack of sensation could be related to the disorder, said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. People with Asperger's can be overly sensitive to things like touch, noise and pain, or sometimes under-sensitive, she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/school-adviser-gunman-loner-felt-no-pain-235416864.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CcE4s1QKj4A0YfQtDMD

A...

There are aspies with self control and aspies without self control. Just like you Normals.

I don't go around killing little children with a firearm sitting in a classroom. I build guidance systems for cruise missiles to do a much more thorough job on children in the Middle East.

Ba'al Chatzaf

See Bob this is where you lose me. I understand your point. However, even the Marines in Falujah, Iraq made it clear they put their own lives on the line to avoid killing children.

[Selene]

What I was attempting to obtain from you was this issue that the killer could not feel pain.

The idea that someone had to watch him when he was handling soldering irons.

[PDS]

Indeed no one but Americans can understand it, nor do outsiders wish to remove your inalienable right to shoot each other at your discretion.

Although this is not really a topic that can be volleyed back and forth by quips, I must respond and confirm that we actually have laws against our citizens shooting each other "at our discretion," Daunce. That's generally not allowed except under very limited circumstances.

Drunk driving is outlawed too, but for some reason, 11,000-plus people were killed by drunk drivers in America annually over the past couple of years. We would need 423 shootings like yesterday each year to simply equal the body count caused by drunk driving each year. You would need one Connecticut-like slaying per day every day of the week, and two on Sundays--every Sunday, mind you--to equal 11,000 annual shooting deaths in America. And yet I have never once heard any outsider (or American) take umbrage at the strange notion that we Americans have the freedom to consume alcohol, seemingly "at [our] discretion."

On a note related to your quip, I see in Canada that somewhere between 30-50% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related, at least within the past 10 years. That's a lot of dead people because of Canada's apparent drunk driving problem. It would appear Canadians have the right to consume and alcohol and abuse that right on a regular basis, all with fatal consequences. Too much freedom and "discretion", perhaps?

As an outsider to Canada, however, I would never wish to remove the seemingly sacred right Canadians clutch to that allows them to drink alcohol at their discretion and kill people with their cars. A horrible tragedy indeed.

My guess is that nobody but Canadians can understand this.

False analogies deserve false dichotomies. Accidental killings are not morally comparable to intentional ones.

The victims' families, the drunk drivers sitting in jail, and the judges who sentenced them will be surprised to learn that these fatalities are the result of "accidents."

No, I am afraid they are not. Such offenses are usually considered reckless manslaughter. I have prosecuted them and put these people in jail before.

The analogy is not false: because of the freedom granted to people in American (and Canadian) society, they are able to use instruments (sometimes guns, sometimes automobiles) to abuse that freedom and kill others.

I guess drunk driving deaths are less sexy than school shootings, notwithstanding the body count that continues to pile up, year after year after year...

[PDS]

Indeed no one but Americans can understand it, nor do outsiders wish to remove your inalienable right to shoot each other at your discretion.

Although this is not really a topic that can be volleyed back and forth by quips, I must respond and confirm that we actually have laws against our citizens shooting each other "at our discretion," Daunce. That's generally not allowed except under very limited circumstances.

Drunk driving is outlawed too, but for some reason, 11,000-plus people were killed by drunk drivers in America annually over the past couple of years. We would need 423 shootings like yesterday each year to simply equal the body count caused by drunk driving each year. You would need one Connecticut-like slaying per day every day of the week, and two on Sundays--every Sunday, mind you--to equal 11,000 annual shooting deaths in America. And yet I have never once heard any outsider (or American) take umbrage at the strange notion that we Americans have the freedom to consume alcohol, seemingly "at [our] discretion."

On a note related to your quip, I see in Canada that somewhere between 30-50% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related, at least within the past 10 years. That's a lot of dead people because of Canada's apparent drunk driving problem. It would appear Canadians have the right to consume and alcohol and abuse that right on a regular basis, all with fatal consequences. Too much freedom and "discretion", perhaps?

As an outsider to Canada, however, I would never wish to remove the seemingly sacred right Canadians clutch to that allows them to drink alcohol at their discretion and kill people with their cars. A horrible tragedy indeed.

My guess is that nobody but Canadians can understand this.

False analogies deserve false dichotomies. Accidental killings are not morally comparable to intentional ones.

Indeed no one but Americans can understand it, nor do outsiders wish to remove your inalienable right to shoot each other at your discretion.

Although this is not really a topic that can be volleyed back and forth by quips, I must respond and confirm that we actually have laws against our citizens shooting each other "at our discretion," Daunce. That's generally not allowed except under very limited circumstances.

Drunk driving is outlawed too, but for some reason, 11,000-plus people were killed by drunk drivers in America annually over the past couple of years. We would need 423 shootings like yesterday each year to simply equal the body count caused by drunk driving each year. You would need one Connecticut-like slaying per day every day of the week, and two on Sundays--every Sunday, mind you--to equal 11,000 annual shooting deaths in America. And yet I have never once heard any outsider (or American) take umbrage at the strange notion that we Americans have the freedom to consume alcohol, seemingly "at [our] discretion."

On a note related to your quip, I see in Canada that somewhere between 30-50% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related, at least within the past 10 years. That's a lot of dead people because of Canada's apparent drunk driving problem. It would appear Canadians have the right to consume and alcohol and abuse that right on a regular basis, all with fatal consequences. Too much freedom and "discretion", perhaps?

As an outsider to Canada, however, I would never wish to remove the seemingly sacred right Canadians clutch to that allows them to drink alcohol at their discretion and kill people with their cars. A horrible tragedy indeed.

My guess is that nobody but Canadians can understand this.

False analogies deserve false dichotomies. Accidental killings are not morally comparable to intentional ones.

Furthermore if you carry your analogy through, all cars and all guns are equally culpable in the hands of irresponsible or homicidal users. What to do. in practical terms? The car is designed to transport people, the gun is designed to kill them. Better check with the NRA for support on this tough talking point.

Hmmm. Do you really think I spent an hour of my time last night regurgitating NRA talking points?

I will assume this is a bad turn of the phrase, and not the insult it otherwise appears to be.

By the way, you own more guns than I do, apparently, and I have no membership in the NRA. This is, of course, irrelevant to our discussion.

[caroljane]

PDS, it was a bad turn of phrase and I will withdraw it. I forgot whom I was addressing. Indeed you and everyone else on your side of the argument here, I do not mean, or want to insult. Obviously it is an institution I so passionately dislike, which I believe facilitates unnecessary deaths. Please accept my apologies

[Selene]

In the United States, on average, legally owned guns stop four thousand [4,000] crimes per DAY.

[BaalChatzaf]

PDS, it was a bad turn of phrase and I will withdraw it. I forgot whom I was addressing. Indeed you and everyone else on your side of the argument here, I do not mean, or want to insult. Obviously it is an institution I so passionately dislike, which I believe facilitates unnecessary deaths. Please accept my apologies

You sentiment is sound. However firearms do have their good uses. I find making a fetish out of them defies reason and logic.

There are bad guys in the world and sometimes good guys have to shoot them to make the world safer.

If it were possible to set our phasors to stun, I would really prefer that.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[George H. Smith]

I was not quipping. I should rather have said, "kill each other at your discretion" rather than shoot. Certainly if I could remove assault weapons and handguns by magnetic satellite from all civilians on earth including policemen, I would. I am conservative in many ways.

We are looking through different eyes. I see dead children who but for technicalities, might have lived. You see an imperishable ideal that despite the dead, the broken eggs, must live.

If you could somehow manage to confiscate all guns, do your eyes also permit you to see the many victims who otherwise would have been able to save their lives and protect their property with guns? That happens every day in America, though only rarely do such incidents get reported. I personally know a woman who would have gotten gang-raped by three street thugs if she had not pulled a gun from her purse and threatened to shoot them. In her case, as in many others, the mere appearance of a gun can protect someone. It is often not necessary to actually use them.

If people use guns to assault others, then they, and they alone, are responsible for their crimes. To deny people who use guns for legitimate self-defense their ability to defend themselves effectively because of criminals is to serve up innocent people as sacrificial victims.

Do you also "see" those inevitable victims of your gun ban? Or don't they count?

Ghs

[Dglgmut]

To deny people who use guns for legitimate self-defense their abiliy to defend themselves effectively because of criminals is to serve up innocent people as sacrificial victims.

Good point. This connects to a thought I had recently: People, on average, have more good to offer than bad. This is evidenced by the fact that we're still around, but also that we've progressed as a species over time.

Is it best that everyone have a gun or no-one? Well, if men have more good to offer than bad, it is better to empower everyone that the good people will have that much more of an advantage over the bad.

Oh, and here's a cute girl's video regarding the recent massacre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOKP2n585aQ

[George H. Smith]

I have been following both MSNBC and Fox News since the massacre in Connecticut. Predictably, MSNBC was calling for gun control laws within hours after the tragedy, while many talking heads on Fox News were blaming the tragedy on the lack of God in American culture.

It is difficult to say which explanation is more idiotic, so I won't even hazard a guess.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Oh, and here's a cute girl's video regarding the recent massacre:

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOKP2n585aQ]

A welcome dose of common sense. The girl is obviously not from Canada.

Ghs

[Mikee]

The sense nature gave to a mama bear would make people realize they're sending their kids off to places with absolutely no security. I admire the sense of duty of the principal rushing in the direction of the gunshots but wish our divorced from reality populace could see the obvious: she should've had a gun. There will always be wacko's. Lefties will say "Principals should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER, have to have a gun (big emphasis on the last EVER). As if saying it enough times makes all the wackos in the world disappear and absolves you of any personal responsibility for your own life or the life of your loved ones. Don't be a victim. Wishing doesn't make it so.