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Going under Down Under Alas, the ‘British Disease’ appears to have spread to Australia:
“Australia is set to ban more than 500 types of handguns and will give people six months to hand in their arms or risk going to prison.”
Is there still time for free Australians to fight back? If so, then I urge them not to make the same mistake that gun-owners in the UK made by trying to defend gun-ownership as necessary to the continued participation in shooting sports. Minority sports are casually expendable. Not so, the right to self-defence. It is the latter that you must fight for. It also has the benefit of being the truth.
Make sure every Australian knows that. Shout it from the top of Ayers Rock.
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Methinks ’tis time for all true Aussies to start purchasing lengths of Polypipe w/endcaps; they’ll know what they are for !!
David,
You seem to suggest that UK gun owners, who had pistols for sporting purposes only, made a mistake by defending private ownership only on the basis of that sporting purpose. This is not so as sport was the reason why most of them had these guns. The mistake would have been worse if they had lied and used self defence as their argument, and the outcome would have been the same.
You are in danger of doing a Gabb.
If being dishonest against the Dishonest Politicians ™ is what it takes to prevent damage and danger to the citizenry, then one fights with ALL means at one’s disposal.
JohnJo,
Well, I clearly remember at the time that every ‘public’ argument that I heard in opposition to the handgun ban was based on the right to indulge in harmless shooting sports.
As far as the UK is concerned, a self-defence argument would probably have fared no better in the then climate but it would have established the principle.
And I should add that I am always in danger of doing a Gabb 🙂
Then they would have lied and failed and the damage to the remaining shooting sports would have been the legacy of the lie. “Shooters say they need guns for sport but really they want them for self defence” – says anti-gun lobby.
Now, if the general population demands the right to have guns for self defence, well, that’s a different story but don’t do the shooters an injustice by saying they were mistake in their honest defence.
Sorry, ^^ was in reply to MommaBear. I’m just to damn slow at this typing lark.
Just a pedantic point but Ayers Rock is known as Uluru these days.
David,
Not pedantic at all, sir. In fact, interesting and significant.
So if I continue to call it ‘Ayers Rock’ does that ‘hate speech’?
Ayers Rock, Ayers Rock, Ayers Rock, Ayers Rock, Ayers, Ayers Rock, Ayers Rock………..
Having recently visited the place, I can tell you that Qantas advertise their flights as going to Ayers Rock, the tourist brochures call it Uluru, Ayers Rock or “Uluru (Ayers Rock)” and in its vicinity, it’s called “The Rock”.
Regarding “Ayers Rock” as hate speech doesn’t seem to have caught on yet, unless lots of Aussies are brazenly flouting the rules.
As long as gun owners argue for property rights, the tyrants will say it’s dangerous property. If you say the guns are for self defense the tyrants will call for more police. The only way to keep your guns is make clear that the guns exist to resist tyrany and dare the tyrants to come get them.
It is true that many, maybe even most American gun owners would turn in their weapons if they were ordered to. That millions of Americans will not turn in their weapons if ordered is the reason we will remain relatively free.
Again, why should they lie? And what of the legacy of the lie that I mention? Anyone that wishes to argue the case for gun ownership for self defence is free to do so but do not rely on sporting shooters to change their position from a sporting one to another. And to accuse them of being mistaken in their standpoint is something that should only be swallowed when delivered by someone with a gun that refuses to give it up to the police when asked, screaming “but I need it for self defence” from his bedroom window as the ARU arrive.
Sporting shooters are exactly that. Condemned to the scrap heap of history, perhaps, but true.
As an aside, many shooters that I know are gravitating towards the Libertarian cause. After democracy clearly failed them they began looking for something else. You should welcome them. Many of them have guns don’t you know?
David Carr and (by extention) Dr Gabb are correct on this one.
To argue from principle is the right thing to do – win or lose.
As the old French television series “The Flashing Blade” put it “It is better to have fought and lost than not to have fought at all”.
Most British shooters were not ONLY sportsmen – they were the people who tended to be involved in the T.A. and whose fathers and grandfathers had served the nation in arms.
In PRIVATE they tended to support the self defence and ancient right arguments (just as their grandfathers in the Constitutional Club network had done).
In public they tended to say “it is just a sporting matter”.
THAT was the dishonesty.
The shooters that I know argued from first principle. It was their first principle and not yours however. Now you accuse them of dishonesty (plenty of room for fisking the meaning of first principle here; go ahead, make my day).
Having said that I personally believe the libertarian view BUT I am not going to sit back while shooters are accused of being dishonest and encouraged to be dishonest all in the same thread.
I knew it was a mistake to start talking to you guys. I’ve got a dinner party in an hour and my blood is up. RAH!
Don’t worry. You are not close enough to Australia to know that the new laws are a charade. Australians will still, for instance be legally permitted to own anything up to .38 calibre!
JohnJo,
There is much meat in your argument, sir. Indeed, I’d judge that most pistol owners in this country did own their pistols for sporting purposes and little else.
Also, there weren’t all that many of them. Combine that with the gradual erosion of the traditional right of self-defence and it is not surprising that HMG found the task of bullying them into surrender so easy.
There is also another angle to this argument and that is in the application of existing laws. Even if we were allowed to keep and bear arms, the act of using them in self-defence is almost certainly going to result in a conviction for murder and a life sentence. Hence, RKBA becomes more a burden than a boon.
Anyway, I note what you say about shooters turning to libertarianism and I think you’re right. I expect a lot of country sports people will be coming our way before much longer for the same reasons.
The “First Principle” in this debate is private property.
“I get to own things, and you’ve got shit to say about it, now get out of my face.”
This really is a principle, and you can grasp that fact by noting that the form of argument would be the same, no matter what object might be prospectively subject to state approval in a hypothetical:
“[The state] will give people six months to hand in their [ballpoint pens, armchairs, teapots, V-8 engines — you name it] or risk going to prison.”
The state has no right to proscribe ownership (distinguished from mere possession, as, perhaps, in the case of stolen goods) of anything, and that includes weapons.
This is what a “principle” is, ladies and gentlemen. The principle of private property subsumes the example of weapons, and if you’re going to argue from “first principles”, then this is the one.
While I very strongly support the argument from first principle, made well here and by Sean Gabb, I really do appreciate the strength of an argument for ownership based on “protection from tyranny” such as stated by Michael Wagner:
Michael, mind if I make this Quote of the Day on my own site tomorrow?