Quote:
Originally Posted by Twosugars
Thank you for the background, very interesting.
My original post was really rhetorical. I would not expect guns to be banned in America. Guns are ingrained in American culture and psyche.
I didn't know though that philosophical justification for A2 went beyond shooting natives and feeding yourself. Interesting.
As you say, in practice it hasn't worked too well. The government has slowly crept into people's lives anyway. So maybe it is time to rethink the issue?
Also, as I see it, police in US is not used much less as a result of self-defence capabilities of citizens than it is the case in Europe where citizens are unarmed.
I get the lofty ideals, but does it really work in practice?
I get that Americans are big on individualism, but surely, for a social species like us, a healthy mix of individualism and collectivism is the best solution?
Sure, too much collectivism gives you communism, but American model of individualism seems like a step too far in the other direction.
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I think I would hit the post data character max in the forum database if I were to answer all those questions in a single post. Or maybe just the soft limit.
Indeed, it's a complex issue, and there is already encroachment. And some
is desirable. However, for the most part, that's on a state-by-state basis. That's why Republicans have such a hard on for "let states decide their own laws" rather than allow for expansion of federal regulations, etc...
There's not many as federal (national) laws that govern our behavior actually as some would think. I would say the biggest encroachment is our social programs, but I think most people are OK with some degree of socialism (like disability, temporary welfare). Some states have more socialism than others, and that's fine. It's when we start getting into bigger policy discussions of how we regulate things up to the federal level... Democrats would tend to lean towards enlarging the overall state as an answer to solve problems. Republicans, the opposite, they try to keep it local. Texas is probably a good model for the "ideal" form of governing, because our economy is for the most part self-sustaining and so that model would be more feasible. While our property and sales tax is kind higher, our cost of living is not and we don't have an income tax. We also have a healthy amount of import/export... we are one of the few states that could probably secede and be fine... as long as we take care of our own problems, like flooding, wildfires, etc. Our economy did OK despite the recession. (and yes oil is part of that, but we tend to be big in energy in general)
I don't mind if we have some federal laws as an "interface" (i.e. require states to write
some penal code). For example, we have severe and separate punishments for people who are caught drunk driving. (big no no here). There is no CAP laws (Child Access Prevention) federally so it would require states have a law on the books and not all do... and it may be because some states have so small of a population, the laws are possibly more localized (by town)... however, it's not like if a child harms themselves with a gun, there isn't a charge. (Negligent Homocide) But I would not be surprised if some homeowners think that wrongly keeping an arm that even has a remote possibility of falling into a child's hands is legal, and I think that there should be explicit legislature, or at least guidance to create these statutes... and to some degree, it is technically legal, until the child accidentally gets a hold of it and hurts themselves anyway... which seems to add to the issue of morons hiding guns in places where kids have access to. (I'd lose my sh*t if my husband did that or I saw a friend had a gun laying around in their home)
I am also a huge proponent for red flag laws and hope something like this eventually makes it's way to legislature...
Trump Weighs ‘Red Flag’ Orders to Take Guns Away Quickly
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...curb-shootings