Poland has the lowest quantity of firearms in Europe and you want to change that? A bit strange yes?
I don't think private firearms are very useful for international conflicts like Ukraine/Russia or to defeat terrorist attacks.
I don't think private firearms are very useful for international conflicts like Ukraine/Russia or to defeat terrorist attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising
Might have been nice if it happened all across Poland rather than just Warsaw.
This is actually a really good example for why we don't want to ban weapons: Genocides are often perpetrated by the country the victims actually belong to.
Examples: Germany under Nazism, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, -I'm fairly sure the list goes on.
I feel totally safe and I'm actually happy knowing that many of my neighbors have weapons. Especially here in Norway were I know there are strict background checks on who gets permits.
(For Americans: What I would do is start cooperating with NRA like Nordic countries has traditionally done with their local equivalents. Work not to prohibit guns but to promote safe storage and safe practices.)
There is a very long list of countries that are doing better than fine and severely restricting gun ownership. Long before it becomes the case that you need guns to defend your space, you may want to take a long hard look at the politics of your community / country.
There are long lists of entities who safely ignore tail risk events - that's true almost by the definition of "tail risk".
That doesn't mean buying a cheap insurance policy against tail risk events is a bad idea.
in Europe, having guns widely dispersed throughout society would be considered about as expensive as it gets (and far more likely to kill the patient than offer a potential cure under very particular and exceptional conditions)
In Europe a number of countries has and has had guns widely dispersed throughout society since forever. A number of those countries are - and have used to be - very peaceful.
Source: Grew up in Europe. Could disassemble an assault rifle since I was a teenager (my father was assigned one as part of extended draft and kept that and a number of rounds at home. At some point he showed me since I was interested. He also used the opportunity to tell me how grateful I should be for peace and how he hoped he would never have to use it for real).
>> In Europe a number of countries has and has had guns widely dispersed throughout society since forever.
> Gun ownership and gun deaths are minimal in Europe compared to the US.
I think you are moving the goal posts.
I assumed it was obvious I was referring to quantity of guns in a society rather how far apart these guns were actually placed.
Also, there are many things significantly more dangerous than guns. Should we ban those things too? If not, why not?
https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/are_gays_or_guns_mor...
I'm aware that Europeans have their own unique culture with their own unique unsupported assumptions and myths. That's not really a substitute for evidence.
Also, you dodged the question of whether we should ban other things that are vastly more dangerous than guns. Weird.
That is not good form.
We are trying to argue against you in good faith but I must admit I find it frustrating.
Edit:
FWIW, here is some more data: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm...
Well the numbers are overwhelmingly against you and a smart person would stop digging.
Your own figures show that the US is off the charts compared to EU on a) gun ownership b) gun deaths - it's a no brainer and therefore no useful debate on the merits/demerits. (I'm not going to get into US politics and it's really up to them if they want to have more deaths, but even they fall back on 2nd amendment and notions of tradition to try and justify gun ownership.)
> That is not good form.
Form fits the circumstances I'm afraid.
The times are right, because many people are researching guns now due to external factors. It's a growing market for such NGO as mine (even though i don't profit off it).
Plus, take into account that US has a very messed up situation with guns, laws and relations between groups of people. Nobody's trying to copy that over here, we have better role models.
Not really:
* There is always someone with a bigger gun
* There is always someone who wants to steal your gun/ammo
* There is always a bigger gang that wants to steal your gun
If your solution is to join up with others to make your gang the biggest/best armed and enforcing a monopoly on the use of violence, congratulations, you've either reinvented Warlordism, or in the best case, reinvented the idea of a police force, depending on whether or not the head of the gang answers to a civil authority whose legitimacy comes from something other than "might makes right".
All that said, I don't mean that firearms aren't at all useful, just that they aren't more useful than other important tools. You for a group to be able to defend itself you will find that basics like picks, shovels, sledgehammers, crowbars, hammer and nails, axes and hatchets, saws, ladders, wheelbarrows etc. are all at least as useful as a firearm.
Generally speaking, making the other guy waste his ammo can be a winning strategy.
Clearly if you're planning to hold a big cache of firearms, then that becomes an incentive for other gangs to go after you, but most of the time, there are plenty of unarmed people out there which present an easier target.
The aim of firearm ownership at the time of civil unrest is to not be an easier target for bad elements. Somehow implying that by owning firearms you become a bigger target than an unarmed household is ridiculously dishonest statement.
That's overstating my argument.
Let me boil it down further (at the risk of some nuance being lost): Firearms are useful, but not extremely useful.
1) Firearms are not a panacea, and there are plenty of other tools that are at least as important, and a few that are more important. Lack of clean water is a lot more likely to kill you than lack of a firearm.
2) Rather than focusing on personal defense where everyone needs one or more firearms, a better approach is community defense, which at the Dunbar Limit (~ a small village) scale requires at most 1/3 of the firearms, so the resources that the other 2/3 would represent can be spent on other things.
In other words, if you assign a probability of 1 against a Kristallnacht scenario, then nearly all your self-defense effort should be spent on your own security and nothing on community.
On the other hand, if you assign a probability of 1 against a Jericho style scenario where either foreign invaders or neighboring town or an illegitimate federal govt attacks your town then maybe 1/3rd-2/3rd split might work.
The idea is, firearms are possibly the most effective protective measure you can use in all situations, things like clean water preparation might not help you if you're worried about Kristallnacht.
[shrug]
Agree to agree to disagree on the remaining point?
P.S. I would recommend you use a generic term such as "false flag" in the future, rather than any specific historical event. There are those for whom those events have personal significance.
Plus, note that we only make it easier to get a permit if you're a sane, law-abiding adult.