No, the crux is that guns are a useful deterrent and my odds of getting killed by an assault rifle in any given year are about 1 in 2 million and several times less likely than falling from a ladder to my death. So I don’t lose too much sleep over it for the same reason I don’t live in fear of ubiquitous home improvement tools. However, you live in a country that has violently suppressed populations as little as several generations ago, or in the “unique set of circumstances” of the Troubles, as little as 40 years ago. But you continue being her loyal subject.
Congrats, you can copy and paste a Wikipedia page. You seem to have developed a very simplified view of the troubles where the unionists were a plucky band of heroes defending the majority catholic population from the oppressive evil empire. You almost certainly didn’t get this from your US education as it didn’t happen within the US so I can only assume that Bill O’Reilly mentioned it on his Fox news show at some point and that’s where you picked it up from.
maybe take some time to read up on the IRA and their methods before pasting a source that begins with “in their efforts to defeat the IRA” when trying to support why “enforcement was one side against the catholics”
15 years between those events. when’s the cut off for things that are no longer British and are American?
Good of you to smooth over most of my post and just reiterate your view. FWIW I don’t even consider myself British. I also don’t live in the UK.
It’s also Interesting that you’ve focused on your own personal chances of getting killed by an assault rifle whereas my point was about avoiding all deaths not than just my own. Typifies the culture of selfishness in the US that allowed gun culture to take hold.
BS, just let Gringo be. “Mother, should I trust the government?” Bob says Yes! His police will keep him safe with their whistles and all.
It’s also interesting that you’ve focused on your own personal chances of being impacted negatively by your oppressive government rather than say, the experiences of the Irish Catholics. Typifies the culture of imperialistic selfishness in the UK that created the US gun culture.
I’m willing to surmise that any population that had to pick up arms along side your countrymen against the state to earn your own freedom that you wouldn’t be glib about within a period of 15 years.
Look, I told you it was “one sided enforcement” and you asked for sources and told me I “don’t know what I’m talking about”. I gave you an entire wikipedia page full of sources showing the government forces colluded in a completely one sided manner to the degree of torture and terrorist acts (by your own governments admission in the Stevens Inquiries) and you reply by not countering actual point regarding one sided enforcement but rather citing their methods. Looks like someone just retreated pretty hard from their God Queen and Country stance. Maybe you’re the one that doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
I get that the Catholics were fighting back violently after generations of oppression and discrimination. That brings me back to my entire initial point about the reality of these things in a modern world… I know this much logic in one place must be hard for a brainwashed subject to process…
I believe I speak for 96% of us when I say…
I wonder what the most effective strategies are for reducing guns in circulation. Straight up forcible confiscation is unworkable for now. Maybe we can mandate that each gun sold be installed with some sort of tracking chip etc. so the govt can know where each gun is. Excessive taxation at sale is another one.
Ultimately the goal is to take away guns, but you have to boil the frog slowly…
Sooooo trustworthy.
Patrick Finucane (1949 – 12 February 1989)[1] was an Irish human rights lawyer killed[2] by loyalist paramilitaries acting in collusion with the British government intelligence service MI5.[3] In 2011 British Prime Minister David Cameron met with Pat Finucane’s family and admitted the collusion, although no member of the British security services has yet been prosecuted.[4]
Finucane’s killing was one of the most controversial during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.[5]Finucane came to prominence due to successfully challenging the British government in several important human rights cases during the 1980s.[6] He was shot fourteen times as he sat eating a meal at his Belfast home with his three children and his wife, who was also wounded during the attack.[7] In September 2004, an Ulster Defence Association member, and at the time of the murder a paid informant for the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Ken Barrett, pleaded guilty to his murder.[8]
After much international pressure, the British government eventually announced that an inquiry would be held. This was one result of an agreement made between the British and Irish governments at Weston Park in 2001. The British government said it would comply with the terms agreed by the two governments at Weston Park. They agreed to appoint an international judge that would review Finucane’s case and if evidence of collusion was found, a public inquiry would be recommended.[9] The British government reneged on this promise to Finucane’s family after the international judge found evidence of collusion.[10] The Daily Telegraph quoted Prime Minister David Cameron saying "[there are] people in buildings all around here who won’t let it happen".[11]
This support of the cover-up for a 1989 killing was in 2011…
point is it wasn’t a direct result of the British Empire. No other former colonies of the former imperialists developed a gun culture like the US
Notice I said, we’d all be fucked. I also said elsewhere that due to the UK becoming almost entirely secular there’s little chance of any group having to fight for separation and hence being suppressed.
I’m sure you’d admit that the US is a more individualist society than anywhere else in the developed world. the way that manifests itself in gun culture veers over the line to selfishness in my opinion.
Also, the bit about 'being fully aware that I’m no longer in Scotland and I’m now in a much better country and I know it, where did that disappear to? was that a ninja edit?
From James Madison’s Federalist #46 arguing that the second ammendment serves as a adequate check against a federal government:
"To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it."
To argue against a causal link is just existing in denial.
I did remove that. I didn’t want to derail the argument into a personal direction and wanted to stay on the existing points. Not some sort of factual correction, big whoop. You still stand majorly corrected from your high horse regarding UK collusion. Feel free to address that.
I have had no less than four current US infantry officers with combat experience tell me that an armed population (assault weapons) is a VERY effective deterrent against federal overreach. So I don’t think that “we’re all screwed” in such a case.
The idea that something that happened less than 40 years ago for one reason couldn’t occur in a different format is the classic historical fallacy, simply put, you’re regime blind.
^ +1
As if it could never happen again.
I don’t think we’re arguing the same point. My point is that US gun culture can’t be considered the responsibility of the British empire which your statement “proliferate empire…arguably one that birthed US gun culture” implies.
The right to bear arms was a part of English law at the time of US independence. But then it wasn’t included in the US constitution until the 2nd amendment to the bill of rights. It’s almost like other factors were at play that led to the government including it ie forward looking reasons like the threat of invasion and protecting themselves by being able to supplement an army with a militia.
I have a hard time believing that at that point in history the main reason the government in the US included the right to bear arms in the bill of rights was out of a moral obligation to allow citizens insurance against the government.
I just wanted to see if you’d admit to it having previously said you only edit to add.
I still don’t know what you mean by “enforcement” although you seem to now be using “collusion” in its place and you’re putting words in my mouth as if I ever said that the UK didn’t collude with loyalist forces during the troubles. (would also love to see you quote anything I’ve written in this thread that could be considered a “god,queen and country stance”, I’m not Protestant and I’m not British)
I asked you to provide a source for your statement “enforcement being one sided against the catholics” which you pulled out when you were corrected regarding the hugely critical point about the demographics of NI. You pasted a link that started with “in their efforts to defeat the IRA” IRA does not equal Catholic.
The objective of the IRA was to remove NI from the UK, something that the majority of the population did not want. As you’re now fully up to speed with the nuances of the troubles you’ll be aware of the fact that the IRA caused the highest number of deaths during the troubles, a large % of the people they killed were civilians.
^What? Can you refer me to your sources on American history. I’m confused.