Does the US Govt. fear its' citizens?

Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

Just by looking at the various posts submitted to CPF it would appear there is an active interest (unhealthy?) in guns. Now I know you guys in the States have the right to defend your property with lethal force and that often when referring to the brightness of flashlights their blinding ability against a would be attacker is a high consideration for many. Is life so bad in some areas that this is so?
I've noticed too references given not to just say a reasonable handgun ( which I would consider the limit of personal defense ) but to semi - automatics and machine guns. Total overkill - literally!
I can only imagine the massacre if say it all went pear shaped and huge riots broke out in the US. Gangs of people armed to the teeth with their own weapons of mass destruction.
Are there that many weapons about over there that should such a hypothetical situation occur then even the Gov't might fear intervention? It seems kinda sad that as we move forward in time we remain entrenched in mistrust and the need to protect ourselves from ourselves.

Hula.

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

knives, lights, and guns seem to go hand in hand.

the vast majority of the us population (at least as around here!), doesn't posses any type of firearm, or if they do, it is for hunting or sport. by the same token, not many people have any lights better than a mag, or carry a pocketknife.
most of us realize the value of a flashlight and a pocketkniife (more than one of each for many of us!), but many of the general population do not.
by the same token, a handgun can be a useful tool in a given situation...and i'm sure most that do carry them hope they never have to use them.

even if half the us population had guns, do you really think they would go out and start wars and loot, just because they have the guns?

mistrust? you could say that...but it's more a matter of caution. i'm not sure what it's like where you live, but here, not everyone is your friend, and there are some people who commit acts for personal gain, and hurt other people in the process. you carry a flashlight in case you get stuck out in the dark, you carry a pocketknife in case you need to cut something, and some carry a gun in case they need to protect themselves or their loved-ones.

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

Roth - I was just speculating on a situation that (probably) would never really exist when I referred to the hypothetical riot. I was really trying to gauge the level of seriously armed citzens there'd be in such a worst-ever case scenario. Interesting to note that you say guns, knives and flashlights go hand in hand which I doubt would be the thinking here where for the most part people might state that they own a flashlight for convenience/practical reasons. They would have primarily bought these from supermarkets/DIY stores/ etc and not from tactical supply retailers - very little of which exist.

Hula.

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

Fortunately the vast majority of firearms belong to honest, law abiding people as shown by the fact that less than 1 percent of guns are ever used in a crime.

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

[ QUOTE ]
Rothrandir said:
knives, lights, and guns seem to go hand in hand.

the vast majority of the us population (at least as around here!), doesn't posses any type of firearm, or if they do, it is for hunting or sport.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm going to look for some more recent numbers but I would say "minority", yes. Vast minority, not really. Also, from my reading it appears that as gun ownership goes up violent crime goes down. Just look at the increase in violent crime in England since handguns have been banned.

What fraction of U.S. households owns firearms?...42%

What fraction of U.S. residents owns firearms?...28%

[Davis and Smith, General Social Surveys, 1972-1993, all figures]

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

Doubleganger is right, and to add to that most of the firearms used in crime are obtained illegally too! And most criminals using them are previous violent offenders that are recirculated back into mainstream society by a lousy justice system. The media here pumps firearm related crime in an effort (supported by the wealthy friends of our legislators) to push for our 2nd ammendment rights to be extinguished. I think the danger to our govt. will be greatest the day they succeed and actually attempt to disarm citizens.

As for the title of your post, I hope so, that's the way our founders intended it!

TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

"As for the title of your post, I hope so, that's the way our founders intended it!" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/buttrock.gif - TSG68

Some gun owners don't even see their firearms as a way of self defense. Some owners see it as a collection, a way to gather food (hunting) and like myself - a "sport".
Guns Ownership does not equal violence. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dedhorse.gif

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

Historically governments, are the worst mass murderers.IN the countries where the government fears the people they disarm them.

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

hula

I would hope that the government does fear it's citizens!

It keeps the basturds on their toes. Maybe California's recall was/is good for one thing, putting the fear into political leaders that the citizens are in charge, not them. We send them to office for a few years to represent us. We put you in office, we can take you out, we're not going to wait for the next election before the trainwrecks.

On the topic of guns, I think your view is too narrow of the situation. You have to realize just how absolutely huge the US is both in physical size, population and diversity. You can drive across four or five European countries in one day. Hell you can barely make the length of California in one day.

We have regions of the country that are vastly different in their politics, religion, social views. Again in California you have the highly populated Southern California on the coast but inland you have desert and nobody. There are whole counties in northern California with populations so rural only one Sheriff's deputy patrols 500 square miles and the town has only a couple stop signs and one stoplight.

My point is that you have to realize that we are so diverse that many misconceptions can be held by just viewing one sliver of the country and it's people. Are those American's here on the board representative of the population maybe, maybe not?

What is going on in the cities and frequently makes the newpapers is not representative of the country as a whole and often gives a grossly distored view.

GregR

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

I read a long article recently about the number of suicides by people jumping off the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. The railing there is only 4 ft. high.

I came to the conclusion that if access is easy, deeply depressed people WILL jump off.

Similarly, if access to guns is easy, angry people WILL kill others.

When easy access is removed, the number of deaths declines.

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

Pretty scary. Seems to be a lot of mis-information out there. Is the Swiss government equally afraid of its well-armed citizens? Is a semi-automatic .22 overkill? Do small arms qualify as WMD?

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

PhotonBoy: If someone want's to kill himself it's not very hard to find a way. Personally I would use a rope as being the easyest way as anyone who has ever been held in a 'sleeper' hold will know. Want to ban all the ropes?


onelight and Double A: I agree completely.
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
-- George Washington

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

[ QUOTE ]
PhotonBoy said:
I read a long article recently about the number of suicides by people jumping off the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. The railing there is only 4 ft. high.

I came to the conclusion that if access is easy, deeply depressed people WILL jump off.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interestingly enough, studies have been done that show that the Golden Gate Bridge just has some suicide mystique about it. They showed that many jumpers had even driven across other bridges (with even smaller railings) just to get to the Golden Gate.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon6.gif

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

I view my firearms in two distinct ways.

1: Entertainment. A good day at the range is a good day indeed!

2: Defense. This could be defending myself and family against a scumbag criminal, or when the blue helmets come around to disarm us.... (just as criminal!)

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

FYI - chain link fence added to increase railing height... Harder to jump over. Not as attractive for tourist.

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

It's interesting to me that the post implies that if there was a higher fence that people would then not commit suicide and not be depressed?

As far as guns, wow, another divisive topic to tackle here today /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Already criminals cannot buy guns through the regular channels. So criminals get their guns illigally. If you stop the normal channels then people who are not criminals can no longer buy guns, but it does nothing for the illigal channels that the criminals use.

If the problem is guns in the hands of law abiding, non-depressed and non-suicidal citizens, then outlawing guns will solve that problem. But it won't stop the crooks from having them.

Now, convince me that the problem is that normal people can legally own guns /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

YEAH! What James said!!!

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

YEAH! YEAH! What PJS said about what James said!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Doubleganger is correct about crime going up as gun ownership went down. I believe Australia had the same thing happen to them. I wish I could find the details, but there was a some city (in FL IIRC) that had a sharp decrease in violent crimes after they passed a CCW "must issue" law. The same city had a sharp increase in non-violent crimes at the same time. Conclusion: the criminals were still there and were still criminals, but they were robbing cars or burglarizing unoccupied homes instead of taking a chance on robbing possibly-armed citizens.

Hula: I see you're from England, so you probably haven't had the reasons to study the US Constitution that most of us Americans have. The writers of the Constitution wanted the general populace to have firearms to protect themselves from the government itself. To get an idea of what that means to us US Citizens, I suggest you read the 4th post in this thread. Dennis says it much better than I ever could.

The gun grabbers claim that guns are evil and kill people - which is kinda like saying we should outlaw pencils because they make spelling mistakes. Or blame spoons because Rosie is fat.

"Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt."
(When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults)

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

[ QUOTE ]
Bill.H said:
Or blame spoons because Rosie is fat.

[/ QUOTE ]

ROTFLMAO!

Re: Does the US Govt. fear its\' citizens?

In the US, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has frequently been on the side of further restricting guns. However, just in the last ten days a report was released saying after years of multiple studies no definitive conclusion can be made, that more restrictive gun control equals less gun deaths. The CDC and other groups who's purpose is to ban guns have been doing much backpedling and making many statements about how the surveys and studies were flawed, results not reliable etc.

Around 35 of the 50 states have laws giving the average American the right to carry a concealed handgun. When the State of Florida started this trend many years ago the cries of doom were strong and loud. Yet in that time I have not heard that any horrific problem has ensued. I would think if there was any evidence the handgun control groups would be crowing from the highest tree that they told us so.

The problem is this, when is society going to hold individuals responsible for their behavior, instead of restricting anything and everything that could be misused?

I've been told that this banning behavior has been taken to the extreme in England. The carrying of a pocket knife in public is a criminal offense unless you are travelling to or from work in which the knife is needed to perform your job. Is this correct?

I've also been told that again in England that pubs have been ordered to use plastic bear mugs, because glass one's we being broken and used as weapons in bar fights? Is this true?

I've also been told that in England a person does not have a LEGAL right to use deadly force even to save their own life. Does anybody know if this is a fact?

Wow,
GregR