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Do firearms empower people?

Do firearms empower people?


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US Conservative

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Exercising one's rights. A means to prevent tyranny. Self defense. The means to hunt.


Do firearms empower people? Note that this is not pertaining specifically to the US or the 2nd amendment, but rather a general question.


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Guns don't empower people, people empower people.
 
Guns empower people to do what they want, be that good things or bad things, so long as the gun is present at the time they want to do the particular act. Whether more help or harm comes as a result of this is an entirely different question.

The rhetoric about 'preventing tyranny' is largely empty though, IMO.
 
Guns don't empower people, people empower people.

In the last century over 100 million died due to marxism. Except for those that rebelled, they were unarmed.

There was a difference there. Is that difference empowering or not?

Who's empowered in this photo, and how do you think that happened?
Liberated+Concentration+Camp+prisioner+holds+german+soldier+at+gunpoint
 
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Guns empower people to do what they want, be that good things or bad things, so long as the gun is present at the time they want to do the particular act. Whether more help or harm comes as a result of this is an entirely different question.

The rhetoric about 'preventing tyranny' is largely empty though, IMO.

Really? The colonies became the USA largely because of the empowerment of arms. ;)
 
Really? The colonies became the USA largely because of the empowerment of arms. ;)
As I mentioned above, guns empower people to do whatever they want. That both applies to fighting back against tyranny, and being a tyrant in the first place. I can't name any tyrants who were unarmed.

We would also have to get into an argument about what constitutes 'tyranny'. Not sure the US government is any more or less tyrannical than the UK...
 
Guns inflict pain, the ability to inflict pain is power. I've been reading 1984 again:

He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: ‘How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?’

Winston thought. ‘By making him suffer,’ he said.
 
Guns are tools. Do tools empower people?
 
This exchange comes from one of my favorite movies:
Simon: I've gotta ask you for a favor. Let me go my way here. This truck's my responsibility, and now that the car's hooked up to it, it's my responsibility too.

Rocstar: Do you think I'm stupid? Just answer that question first.

Simon: Look, I don't know nothing about you; you don't know nothing about me. I don't know if you're stupid, or some kind of genius. All I know is that I need to get out of here, and you got the gun. So I'm asking you, for the second time, let me go my way here.

Rocstar: I'm gonna grant you that favor, and I'm gonna expect you to remember it if we ever meet again. But tell me this, are you asking me as a sign of respect, or are you asking because I've got the gun?

Simon: Man, the world ain't supposed to work like this. I mean, maybe you don't know that yet. I'm supposed to be able to do my job without having to ask you if I can. That dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you ripping him off. Everything is supposed to be different than it is.

Rocstar: So what's your answer?

Simon: You ain't got the gun, we ain't having this conversation.

Rocstar: That's what I thought: no gun, no respect. That's why I always got the gun.

Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way. I think a lot of people would react completely differently if they didn't have a gun. I'm not pigeon-holing all gun owners like this, but I think that, for some people, owning a gun gives them this feeling that they can do anything, and can get away with anything.
 
Mostly they just make cowardly people less afraid(but only slightly, they still live in fear), and people with small penises feel less inadequate.
 
In the last century over 100 million died due to marxism. Except for those that rebelled, they were unarmed.

There was a difference there. Is that difference empowering or not?

Who's empowered in this photo, and how do you think that happened?

So except for the ones that where armed, they where unarmed. Brilliant!
 
As I mentioned above, guns empower people to do whatever they want. That both applies to fighting back against tyranny, and being a tyrant in the first place. I can't name any tyrants who were unarmed.

We would also have to get into an argument about what constitutes 'tyranny'. Not sure the US government is any more or less tyrannical than the UK...

The US government will not arrest me just for being armed but "unlicensed". ;)
 
The US government will not arrest me just for being armed but "unlicensed". ;)
As mentioned in the very post you quoted, one person's definition of 'tyranny' differs from another. Thank you for making my point.
 
Guns don't empower people, they do provide the illusion of empowerment for some people, though.

Look at this thread, for example. We have some people who truly believe that owning a gun would prevent them from being the victim of "tyranny" as though the playing field is akin to that which existed in 1776.

Newsflash, it's not. The founding fathers owning guns didn't win the revolutionary war, the fact that the British didn't really think it was worth the effort of sending enough troops and weapons across the ocean to stomp our faces into the ground is what won the war. It wasn't cost effective to win the war and the supply lines were pretty much unsustainable for the meager benefits it would have provided. Many Brits knew their "English brethren in the colonies" would still look to England as a patriarch of sorts. They were still going to want their tea. Not enough reward to warrant the costs of Iron fisted cotnrol.

Nowadays, ships don't use sails and the tyrants would be on their own home court. These days, you aren't going to overthrow a tyrannical government as a ragtag group of spunky rebels with guns. You would be crushed like the Brits would have crushed us in the 1770's had they actually felt it economically expedient to do so.
 
Guns don't empower people, they do provide the illusion of empowerment for some people, though.

Look at this thread, for example. We have some people who truly believe that owning a gun would prevent them from being the victim of "tyranny" as though the playing field is akin to that which existed in 1776.

Newsflash, it's not. The founding fathers owning guns didn't win the revolutionary war, the fact that the British didn't really think it was worth the effort of sending enough troops and weapons across the ocean to stomp our faces into the ground is what won the war. It wasn't cost effective to win the war and the supply lines were pretty much unsustainable for the meager benefits it would have provided. Many Brits knew their "English brethren in the colonies" would still look to England as a patriarch of sorts. They were still going to want their tea. Not enough reward to warrant the costs of Iron fisted cotnrol.

Nowadays, ships don't use sails and the tyrants would be on their own home court. These days, you aren't going to overthrow a tyrannical government as a ragtag group of spunky rebels with guns. You would be crushed like the Brits would have crushed us in the 1770's had they actually felt it economically expedient to do so.

Newsflash, guns aren't a guarantee that there wont be tyranny (clearly). They are a means to resist it. I own a car with an alarm, I dont think that means it can't be stolen.

Hopefully you understand that concept.
 
To give an example, the whole Bundy ranch thing. If we actually had a tyrannical government, all of the people involved in the "resistance" would have been smoking husks at the bottom of a crater.

We don't actually have a tyrannical government, though, so they were able to give the illusion of resisting a mythical tyranny with their guns.
 
This exchange comes from one of my favorite movies:


Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way. I think a lot of people would react completely differently if they didn't have a gun. I'm not pigeon-holing all gun owners like this, but I think that, for some people, owning a gun gives them this feeling that they can do anything, and can get away with anything.

Some people? Probably. Those people, however, approach the problem set differently. It is not owning a gun that empowers, but the ability and willingness to engage in violence in order to enforce ones' will.

In that vein, others being armed is what is empowering to the regular populace.

The guy who seems to have kidnapped/raped/possibly murdered Hannah Graham, for example, who is now connected to a slew of disappearances. He didn't need a gun - he's a large powerful man overpowering college girls.

.....how many of them do you think were armed and capable of defending themselves at the time? That's empowerment.
 
To piggyback off a few other posters, guns empower people to do things, both good and bad. Unfortunately, the goodness of the good things are usually much less good than the badness of the bad things.
 
To give an example, the whole Bundy ranch thing. If we actually had a tyrannical government, all of the people involved in the "resistance" would have been smoking husks at the bottom of a crater.

We don't actually have a tyrannical government, though, so they were able to give the illusion of resisting a mythical tyranny with their guns.

They had power from their guns, but they had a lot less power than those they were opposing, thus the government didn't consider them a threat.
 
To give an example, the whole Bundy ranch thing. If we actually had a tyrannical government, all of the people involved in the "resistance" would have been smoking husks at the bottom of a crater.

We don't actually have a tyrannical government, though, so they were able to give the illusion of resisting a mythical tyranny with their guns.

Incredibly flawed logic.
 
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