Russia attacked ukraine because they didn't. Iran got attacked because it didn't. North korea isnt attacked because they have. That's the moral of the story.
It's "make nukes first, ask questions later"
This seems analogous to the idea that every household should have guns if they want to be safe.
And why a divorced guy living in his house be an issue with your friends or neighbors?
Why is “divorced” relevant. Maybe he should be the one worried about NIMBYs.
I made a profile of a person that fits the profile of somebody that might be a little angry at society. Clearly I've struck a nerve here, and maybe thats something worth interrogating.
For what its worth, there are plenty of guys I know who are divorced, and it was probably the right decision, and they're great people. Most marriages end that way, in fact. It doesn't mean the "divorced jaded man who lost his social place in the world, struggles to find kindness or peers, and lashes out" is a stock character that will go away. It's a real problem
Oh god… please fix me.
Anyways it read to me like an obvious generalization. My bad if you weren’t. After all, some of your best friends are “x”.
And furthermore most gun crime is committed by people who do not legally own the firearm being used. [2] I'm loathe to link to that site, but this is an issue that is poorly reported and so it requires exploring a web of data sources, which they actually competently do, on this issue at least.
You can also kind of sniff test this claim by considering that homicide rates are much higher in urban than rural areas, yet urban areas have dramatically lower gun ownership rates.
[1] - https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crim...
[2] - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/mar/12/john-faso/...
You should take a refresher on statistics and the difference between correlated and causative
Problem is it is impossible to combine: - responsible storage of firearms - immediate availability of firearms anywhere at home when faced with hostility
Also most gun violence is domestic so having firearms at home do not solve a problem but creates it.
Curiosity is the number one problem with kids and guns, and that's because we hide them behind a mystique and don't make them understand. But talk to any redneck kid, and guns aren't a big deal, because they've had the mystique removed through education and familiarity.
Also people can be responsible for years until they aren't. As much as you believe you couldn't hurt someone you love, there is no way you (pr anyone else) can be 100% sure that reality will never change. If there was a way to know, people would be stopped or would surrender their weapons before they commit crimes.
That said: lock up your guns. Your mid will probably survive a stove burn.
In most case, it is the same countries that give adequate training to their cops, a not-so-surprising correlation.
When it's rare, then it's easy and reasonable to take a highly idealistic approach. When it's frequent you have to deal with uncomfortable practical issues like whether an officer should prioritize your survival, or their own. There's a line where heroics turn into suicidality, and that's largely driven by frequency.
We’ve seen the footage of the police brutalizing peaceful protestors beating them with clubs, riding over them repeatedly with horses.
The police in this country are woefully undertrained compared to the rest of the industrialized nations.
It takes more time and training to be certified as a hairdresser in most parts of the US than it does a cop.
What is "the police" on the level of countries? There is no majority that agrees that, e. g., the NATO can serve as the police. It feels like on this level, we live in an anarchy with only very few actors who don't really want to live together. So maybe nukes are an option, although I don't like it.
You're naive. The police (or whatever you call it) is meant for inward force projection of the state. Your security is not the main concern.
Besides the police works too slowly to truly protect you when SHTF. Sometimes even a minute or two is the difference between you being alive or dead.
This is especially true when you are likely to have guns in the home. I'm countries with virtually no private ownership of guns, it is extraordinarily unlikely to be in life threatening danger in your home.
> This is especially true when you are likely to have guns in the home
Citation needed, because I highly doubt you're correct.
Conversely, if people with guns think there's a decent chance you have a gun too, they'll be terrified of any move you make and have a high chance of misinterpreting any gesture you make into violence. So there is much higher tension.
Of course, there is a possibility that you're being attacked by a crazed murderer - in which case you're probably going to die either way. But this happens vastly, vastly less often that robbery.
You can take a look at crime stats from even the poorest European countries. The proof that lack of gun ownership in no way causes more violent crime is evident. Everything I just added above is an explanation of why this happens, but the fact it happens is not up for debate.
I was once involved with a project that returned determination of land ownership from people's physical custody to the courts and the resulting drops in assault and homicide rates (for the entire country) was in the double digits over a period of months.
If you re-read what I've wrote carefully you can observe I didn't refer once to my lived experience.
A safe community isn’t one where people are held in check by police. People are not roving around thinking “oh I’d break and enter and murder and rape but for the fact a police officer might shoot me.”
People in such a community lack guns but they do have things like a working public health system, decent education, daily encounters with other people that are positive and so on.
The threat of police shootings is not what makes a safe society safe.
Constructive, open and fair trade is the equivalent at an international level. Cooperative and trusting. Not staring down the barrel of each other’s guns.
Except this isn't borne out in the data. Look at deeply conservative places where guns are literally everywhere, and you'll see very low crime rates compared to cities with strict gun control.
And why? Well, as a criminal, I'd be loathe to try something when there's a good chance the victim is armed.
In your perfect community scenario, a single armed criminal would wreak havoc, completely unopposed.
Why do Canada and Europe have dramatically lower violent crime rates despite having a mostly unarmed population?
Grew up rural Alberta with rifles around the house all the time, in plain view. For shooting game. Not a word was ever uttered about "defending ourselves" with guns... From who?
Hell, we left our door unlocked when we left the house unless it was overnight.
Good grief. Nothing is sadder than people valorizing social/cultural breakdown.
"Peace, order, and good government."
I don't lock my house or my car habitually, never had a problem, never felt the need to keep a weapon either, but I know plenty of people that live in the city that have been robbed or assaulted and do feel the need to carry though. I can't really blame them for not relying on police.
[1] - https://ovc.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh226/files/ncvrw2018/...
Although on this topic I'd also add that urban areas have a similar issue. Criminals know that the overwhelming majority of crime goes unpunished, while people have a reality deluded by shows like CSI. Homicides, for instance, have the highest clearance rate, by far. And it's 47.5%. [1] Vehicular theft has the worst at 6.6%. If you end up with your window busted out and everything that's not strapped down stolen, there's no real point reporting it to the police unless necessary for an insurance claim because you're never getting that stuff back, and the thief is never getting caught.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearance_rate#In_the_United_S...
Source: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.3040...
That's also not necessarily the point I'm making. Suppose you are in a society where a small part of people are bad actors, for whatever reason. They will break and enter, murder, and rape. You want to protect the rest of the society against these bad actors. You can now equip everyone with weapons so they may defend themselves. That also enables the bad actors to use said weapons because we don't know who really know who is a bad actor (at least not the ones that didn't commit any crimes yet). Or you give weapons only to a small part of society, where you enforce strict gun laws.
The alternative is to reduce the number of bad actors and this is, in part, fulfilled by the conditions that you are describing. But how do I reduce the number of state leaders that are willing to shoot each other? I guess it's what you are saying, namely constructive, open, and fair trade. But we're not really making progress in that direction it seems.
Turns out, making yourself a more dangerous target works to an extent.
> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
You know because it’s hard to make a case about being a country of rights, due process, law and order if you don’t extend that to the people within it’s borders.
The blue cities are enforcing the Constitution as sanctuary cities are legal laws of those states. The red states and federal government are violating it.
There’s a supremacy clause, and it’s quite clear.
That's a lie. They broke the law when they entered the country illegally. Then some of them committed more crimes.
Just like you don't need a judge to determine if someone drives without a driver's license.
The states don’t have any sovereignty to make their own decisions about immigration.
Putting aside ICE tactics, if their immigration status is not legal, then by definition they are not law abiding citizens.
Unless you are privy the status of any planned or ongoing ICE operations against criminals, you have no idea what they are doing in that regard.
Law enforcement at all levels needs checks along with better direction in carrying out their duties. However, allowing people to continue living in an immigration limbo is not a solution. Sanctuary cities leave illegal immigrants unprotected.
There are plenty of guns in LA, and any ICE agent or cop would be dumb to assume those they are arresting are unarmed because “it’s against the law”.
The red cities don’t have sanctuary city rules in place, so local law enforcement helps ICE and the arrests don’t make the news.
Going with your analogy, this would be the same as if police basically ignored all home invasion/trespassing laws such that the only houses that criminals entered were in fact those of undefended home owners. In this scenario, it would be demonstrated, by this policy, that yes home owners need to own guns to be safe.
To your point, if you don't want a world where it's safer for home owners to own guns, than you need to ensure there are policies in place to create a world where that was true. The lesson of Ukraine and Iran is that, if you don't have nuclear weapons, your sovereignty is always at the mercy of nations that do.
A world where every country needs nuclear weapons to remain sovereign is similarly undesirable (on a larger scale) to a country where every home needs to have guns to be safe. However we're on a path with nuclear weapons where that is unfortunately not the reality we are creating.
Relations between sovereign states are fundamentally anarchic. There are no world police. The UN and other international institutions have little or no real power, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty is only enforceable through kinetic action by other countries when it suits their interests.
Second strike weapons are in some ways a holdover from Cold War strategic thinking which it's sort of acknowledged probably overestimated the penchant of any side to engage in a first strike.
The practical reality of nuclear war planning has generally been that no one will accept even a single city-buster landing - and no first strike option is really reliable enough to guarantee you didn't miss one.
So achieving monopoly on violence first. Which requires forcefully disarming all opposition just like what is happening right now. Is the Sovereign hypocritical because they arrest and potential kill people they don't like but they do not others to do so? According to many mainstream political theories, not neccessairly so.
The matter of fact is that if a major power really wants to destroy a smaller power, there's nothing a smaller power can do even if they develop a handful of nukes, especially at the cost of their economy. Much better just to work diplomatically with said major powers so that interests are aligned rather than demanding a absolute respect for sovereignity which does not exist in reality. So then the question is, why can the Shah or the Gulf States work with Israel and America, but not the Islamic Regime? Even worse so, it's one to turn a cold shoulder that America or Israel wouldn't care much, but to actively fund proxies that destabilize other allies is just warranting a response.
But if law enforcement is not only not doing their job but actively threatening you: well, I guess 2A won this time.
The differences are so extreme it's a waste of time to discuss the analogy further.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_re...
Before this there was every reason to doubt Israel's claims, which they've been making for 30 years, about Iran imminently having a nuclear weapon. But at this point there's a practically 100% certainty that they will be aiming to create nuclear weapons as quickly as possible.
I think a part of the reason North Korea plays crazy is because they have to. If the US didn't think they'd push the big red button, then we'd invade them in a heart-beat. Mutually assured destruction only works when you believe the other guy will push the button. So you need the bomb and then you also need to make sure everybody thinks you're willing to actually use it.
North Korea has enough conventional rocket artillery within range of Seoul to level the city. This is how Kim was able to run his nuclear program to completion in the first place. It also hasn't changed.
Let's hope NATO doesn't get compromised, else I see 30 new nuclear programs starting soon.
We all hooray (well, some of us) the "good" countries having nukes, to bring peace and stability. But it only takes one funky election to get a crazy person in charge of such "good" nukes. And if you 10x the number of nuclear powers, that's 10x more shots at that.
I don't intend this as a drive-by zinger, far from it, but I think you're being hopelessly optimistic. Every country with the science and engineering muscle to make it happen will be pursuing a nuclear program. NATO, former Warsaw Pact, some assholes who managed to cobble together a broadly recognized country by virtue of force of will, you name it. They're all going to be seeking to create nuclear weapons.
Also, you probably mean "unleash".
I do disagree with your premise that Gaddafi’s death was a natural consequence of the Western intervention. Whilst watching the events unfold at the time, I’d say he would be ousted and killed irrespectively of any intervention — either by the populace or by the various factions vying for power.
Seoul is in artillery range of the border.
More recent events show that it doesn't matter. India-Pakistan endless fight.
And Ukraine. Imagine they had nukes in 2022 and russian army advances. Should they nuke russian cities? It would not stop troops and give them more motivation to fight, to revenge. Should they nuke russian troops? To many nukes need for such large frontline.
The only nuclear weapons Ukraine would need is enough to reliably ensure Moscow and St Petersburg cease existing.
Do you really think the US would trade Washington and New York for a chunk of Mexico?
Like...that's the whole point of MAD. You might as well ask "well why didn't the US and Soviet Union go to war? Obviously they won't launch..."
The entire point of a nuclear deterrent is it stops people asking those sorts of questions, because ultimately it's a gamble. The only guarantee you get is "don't invade my territory and I won't launch". As soon as you start not doing that, you get to ask if you think it's a 1% chance, or a 2% chance, or or or... You get to find out when your capital and most populous city do or do not explode. And you get to roll those dice over and over again.
Like I said: what % chance of Washington DC, and New York City being obliterated would you take for a chunk of Mexico? Obviously if Mexico launch you're going to blow the hell out of it's capital and probably some other targets, but you aren't going to be doing that till after those two cities are gone.
How do you explain India vs Pakistan?
I mean israel gets attacked even though they have nukes, but some rockets are not the same as a regime-changing war
Your original point was that nukes prevented attacks. India vs Pakistan rejects your hypothesis.
You then proceeded to move the goalpost from "$(country_without_nukes) got attacked because it didn't [had nukes]" to "yeah countries with nukes get attacked, but attacks don't escalate" which is also an absurd argument to make.
It's a particularly silly point to make in light of India Vs Pakistan because it was described as an electoral stunt to save face, which means nuclear nations still attack themselves even for the flimsiest reasons.
It's not. the world is not a binary system to make simplistic black/white arguments. Nukes certainly act as deterrent for escalating a war. yes , attacks will exist , but we are not escalating with russia for a reason. you are being pedantic , but the argument for deterrence still stands strong.
I agree, simplistic comments on the line of "$(country_without_nukes) got attacked because it didn't [had nukes]" are silly and don't pass the smell test. Don't you agree?
If you enter into a scenario against a nuclear opponent where they go nuclear (which you going nuclear would certainly do) then you may well defeat them, but they're simultaneously also defeat you. This is a big part of the reason that Russia is so paranoid about the US surrounding it with military bases. The only possible way to treat to sidestep this problem is with a massive decapitation strike where you try to nuke your enemy into oblivion before they have any chance to respond with their own nukes. Realistically, it's probably impossible, but but it remains the Achille's Heel of MAD / mutually assured destruction. And drones/internal strike issues are certainly going to be causing some consternation.
Well, there's also missile defense, but I think that's a dead end. We're talking about the offensive goal being to shoot a bullet at the side of a massive barn, and the defensive goal being to shoot down that bullet. It seems impossible to imagine a state of technology between near peers where the latter becomes easier than the former.
But let me put it in familiar worlds from pop culture:
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
(Because Iran doesn't have nukes, it's currently being forced into playing and making losing moves.)
What I’m saying precisely is that quite often things will appear to be one way for a long time even if the underlying premise is wrong. E.g. the chicken who thinks the farmer is nice because the farmer feeds, houses, and provides safety until the inevitable untimely end for the chicken.
Similar situations which are assumed to be impossible have risks pushed right up to the edge until it becomes inevitable. Sure Pakistan and India narrowly averted this time but what if they didn’t. Take for example the concept that US housing market couldn’t crash simultaneously across the US, this enabled cheap debt which pushed the market to the edge until one day it went over the edge.
There is additionally the problem of victory disease, it looks like you’re winning right up until you fail.
There is a survivability bias, we wouldn’t be discussing the viability of MAD had it not worked out thus far.
If Iran gets a nuclear weapon they’ll be able to avoid being invaded while being able to constantly needle Israel, to the point the survival of Israel would be at stake. Similar to how Israel is needling Iran now but with proxies. At that point Israel must make a choice, peacefully collapse or escalate and I’m confident they’ll escalate. I don’t think it’s a question of if but a question of when, once the threshold has been crossed the once unthinkable becomes routine.
Additionally the inaction of a strong adversary is often seen incorrectly as sign of weakness, but it is the cornered rats that lashes out. We can cross Russia’s and Chinas red lines all day every day, right up until they think they’re a cornered rat and then we can’t. How confident can we really be that we know exactly where that limit is. Because the bellicose are more often promoted the people marking these assessments are more likely to have an overly optimistic on the location of that limit. It appears to me China and Russia have a wait and see approach to the US which appears to be in terminal decline, and yet again the west is taking that as a sign of weakness.
When you have morons in charge not even MAD can save you.
What was this, then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_India%E2%80%93Pakistan_co...
ukraine is what a war looks like when both parties dont have nukes
Looking at india pakistan, and ukraine russia, its clear whether you should give your nuclear arsenal up or not
(Probably the risk to S. Korea, and the risk of pulling China into a war.)
Iraq also attacked an allegedly nuclear capable Israel without fear of a nuclear reprisal.
Please give dates, locations, and number of casualties. Iran has made many aggressive statements and funded and armed Palestinian resistance organizations, but actual conflict between Israel and Iran has been mostly clandestine and not officially acknowledged, with a few exceptions where Israel and the US unilaterally attack Iran.
Regarding guns: if you have easy access to weapons, everyone also has access, so the Nash equilibrium is "get a weapon". If weapons circulation is restricted, the Nash equilibrium is "don't waste your money on weapons".