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Special privileges aren't bad but they must be given on merit, not to bolster a political agenda. Like gun carrying licenses. You get one if you can justify needing it and pass a lot of medical screenings and skill tests to determine you're mentally and physically apable of using them. If they were handed out based on some arbitrary identity basis it'll always be terrible for everyone except those that got the bad licenses.
Thursday, 08-Dec-16 21:15:13 UTC from web-
@nerthos If you outlaw something, then only criminals have them. I've always held that gun licenses should be like driving - you can prove you're not an idiot and not going to be a danger to anyone, and sure, that's fine, here have one.
But as is, we can't even manage the "proving you're not a dangerous idiot" with the driver's licenses it seems, so I dunno. -
@maiyannah Gun carrying licenses have been, if a bit too restrictive to my tastes here, fairly decent (until the kirchnerist government but what didn't they and the other peronists corrupt?). You'd have medical and social screening for it, need a stable source of income to show you're not going to use it for crime, need to show that you practice with guns often, and to justify why you want one. Gun ownership licenses on the other hand are simply "no criminal record, no mental disorders, has a job" but you aren't allowed to take them out of your house unless you unload it completely and carry it in a bag or something.
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@maiyannah But I agree with this for the most part and that has always been my counter to gun-hating political stances. "if you outlaw guns criminals will still get them as they don't buy them legally, and you'll have no way to defend yourself"
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@nerthos Carry licenses here you have to prove you have a need to carry a gun, which is a clear case where you would need to defend yourself (certain high risk jobs or people whom have a history of having been a target of violent crime) or a job that requires one (for instance if you're a hunter, or a security guard, but you need to provide your license for either).
Ownership licenses are basically just the same as yours from the sounds of it. "You aren't some nutter psychopath" -
@maiyannah So they're pretty much the same in both places. Nice. Honestly though I would extend gun carrying licenses to anyone who has a justifiable feeling of insecurity (as in crime, not emotional), has reached 25 years or so of age with absolutely no crime record, and can pass the skill and psychological tests.
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@nerthos The problem with trying to legislate stuff to restrict criminals, is criminals don't follow the law to begin with, so if that's your only reason for enacting a law, then all you effectively do is curtail the rights of law-abiding citizens.
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@maiyannah Unfortunately too many people don't understand this. Instead of restricting legal ownership, the reasonable solution would be to tighten on punishment of unlawful ownership.
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@nerthos That seems the primary difference. While the government scrutinizes claims of neccesity for self-defense VERY CAREFULLY, I do think it is a good justification when there is a genuine danger to the person in question.
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@maiyannah Oh, I think you can get one for that reason here too, I just think the bar should be lowered in the "need" area as long as you pass the tests that show you won't shoot up a mall.
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@nerthos I'd agree. It's very difficult to get one in this sort of vein in Canada because it's an exceptional cause under our laws (as in the literal sense of "they make an exception for you if you can argue that you have a genuine need")
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@nerthos They understand, they just don't care. There's the tribal groupthink again. Gun owners are the BAD people. They associate with one or more Wrong Persons and as a result they're all bad. So you end up with things like the gunsense hashtag on twitter that essentially come down to being another crackpot authoritarian attempt at controlling people.
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@maiyannah Oh I didn't mean north america, I mean here. There isn't really a movement like that here, just some old ladies who don't like guns but they also don't like any sort of violence at all. You know, the true believer christian type? "violence is bad and no one should have the right to kill" but actually believing that, not using it for profit.
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@nerthos In either case it's authoritarian moralism - they just have different reasonings they use.
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@maiyannah In my opinion the best way to get rid of gun crime is do something like in switzerland where the bigger part of the population is given military training and have guns, thus everyone is knowledgeable in gun use and gun security. Even if some nutjob starts shooting people, the most likely outcome is that someone else will pull a gun and end the slaughter within the first few minutes. Gun crime is in big part fueled by the criminal having a feeling of advantage over the victim, but that crumbles if everyone else can kill you as easily as you can kill them.
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@nerthos This is how the States USED to be, just after WW2, for instance. You'll note people shoot up "gun free zones" a lot of the time. It's almost like they go to the place they won't be resisted violently - the soft targets.
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@maiyannah Yup. And the response is never "well maybe we should place a few well armed cops in these places!" but rather "NO GUNS ARE EVIL"
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@nerthos Well, this is the actual authoritarian bent to it. It's control. Whereas I'd say you're honestly pretty moderate as this goes (at least here in North America), these people will settle for nothing less than complete control. Indeed, such is their need and desire for it, that they will delight in these shootings happen, because its an opprotunity to advance their position further.
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@maiyannah I believe in only using enough force as needed. It doesn't have a roof though. But yeah, most of these guys are using shootings and their martyrs to generate nothing but more shootings. The school ones are a good example, blaming gun culture and videogames instead of making the school authorities more competent and encourage them to openly punish bullies and other types of abusers so singled out kids will feel like there's justice in there and won't decide to grab their dad's gun and make some justice happen, just to be branded as criminals and nutjobs even when they hit no one but the ones who harmed them with impunity. Violence happens when the wicked feel they can get away with it, and when the good feel like authority punishes them for being good and rewards the baddies.
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@nerthos So much of the dysfunction in US society comes from an underlying feeling of people thinking there is not any justice for themselves out there and resorting to taking what they perceive as justice into their own hands. Look at the riots post-election for instance.
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@maiyannah Again, that's why actual justice should be enforced. Not everyone has a good sense for it, and they'll try to enforce their own brand if there's no default brand enforced.
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@nerthos It comes down to the social compact in the US basically disintegrating before our own eyes. Whether they'll manage to get another one in place by some means or just descend into anarchy, who knows, though hopefully the latter.
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@nerthos @nerthos It comes down to the social compact in the US basically disintegrating before our own eyes. Whether they'll manage to get another one in place by some means or just descend into anarchy, who knows, though hopefully not the latter.
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@maiyannah All empires crumble, this one just crumbled faster.
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