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But some of Europe actually works rather well Just imagine a country with a low crime rate yet loads of people own guns and finding a fully automatic rifle in someone’s house is not at all unusual. Imagine that this country does not even have a single unifying language, has a weak central government and strong regional government, yet is politically stable. It has few natural resources compared to many other parts of Europe yet has low unemployment, a diverse economy and one of the highest per capita incomes in the world (about the same as the USA). Of course like everywhere it has its problems and it is not a paradise on earth, but it is a pretty nice place to be and an even nicer place to do business. It is also a place that has been praised on this blog before.
Yes, I just got back from Switzerland.
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Hope you had some Samichlaus beer. That stuff kicks. Literally (it’s 14% alcohol).
I’ve never been to Switzerland, but I like the idea of it.
As an American, I’m used to being villified on all counts. Well, not really. It still hurts.
I myself am one of the barely American. I am of recent immigrant extraction measured in generations, and I take a very dim view of European pretension.
So, with respect, may I say, … no, propriety forbids.
Bill Dooley
As someone who is for gun control – Whenever I read articles on gun freedom such as on this website or on the (more xtreme right wing) websites such as stormfront.org (who appear to have worryingly similar views to this website, but more race based) I am always confused as to the extent of gun freedom you aim for?
1.Do you believe everyone should have the ability to own a gun?
2. Do you believe there should be any form of gun control? If yes, why?
3. Should ex criminals be allowed to own guns? Why not?
4. Should law breakers (criminals) such as tax evaders, traffic law offenders be allowed to have guns? If yes, why? (when criminals are not allowed)
5. And always the most interesting for me –
Why guns? Why machine guns? Should people be allowed to carry shoulder launched ground to air missiles? Why a machine gun but not a missile or a mini nuke – it appears the gun pro lobby is drawing a line at say automatic rifles and not allowing other means of defense – bit hypocritical if you ask me.
Guns should be licensed with the emphasis on everyone having an automatic right to possess a gun. The exception to this rule is those with criminal records, who should be automatically barred from gun possession unless they make a very good case why not.
I would have thought the reason for this last exemption was blindingly obvious, namely that those who have already shown themselves not to be law-abiding shouldn’t be armed in case they carry out any further criminal acts. I would also have massively increased penalties for anyone carrying out armed criminal acts.
In this country we have a distinction between civil law and criminal law – not paying the Poll Tax was a Civil Offence for example, as is speeding in your car. The ban on gun ownership is on those committing criminal acts like assault, burglary, etc., not on those with parking fines.
And the reason “why guns” is because if law-abiding and responsible members of society are not allowed to be armed whilst we are unable to enforce the same on criminals then we are merely encouraging violent crime. There is one final and very important point as well. We are not the servants of the government, we are meant to be its master. And yet how can this be if we are disarmed whilst it is not? Allowing an armed public is an additional defence against future tyrrany. You may discount that possibility, but I would rather not take the chance.
Stormfront is a collectivist neo-fascist site. We are neither neo-fascist nor collectivist, so what similarities do you see? Please elaborate.
Like all rights, it can be alientated by behaviour, but the short answer is yes.
Depends what you mean by ‘control’. I do not think anyone was the right to fire off gun whilst walking down the high street as reckless endangerment abridges the rights of others. Owning and carrying a gun on your property or public property is one right, but with that does not come with an uncontrained right to fire those weapons without due care and attention to the rights of others.
Sure, if they have served their sentences/paid their fines/made their restitution, why not? Of course if you have a court system that can make rational judgements on individual cases, I can see depriving a serial armed robber of that right… as I said before behaviour can alienate rights, but I see no reason why a person who has previously done something criminal should loose his right to effective self-defence when they are not committing crimes.
See above.
I really have no problem with the idea of privately owned machineguns and have been many places where people do indeed have such things and the world does not seem to end. It seems to me that there are differences between weapons which by their vary nature are indiscriminate (i.e. explosive ‘area attack weapons’ rather than those which attack individual people) and that is probably the only meaningful criteria for deciding of a weapons is reasonable for use by an individual person or best kept for some sort of collective institutional use that makes using them a bit more cumbersome (such as an army or militia of some sort, for example) due to the threat from what Brian Micklethwait calls ‘apocalyptic individuals’.
The whole issue of self-defence and weapons is really much more amenable to common sense than you seem to imply.
Bob, Switzerland is a fine country, definitely can recommend it. It is pretty expensive, but the service ethic there seems pretty good. I was in Geneva on business late last year and the place is beautiful.
I fervently hope the Swiss never join the EU.
The men and women are often also very good looking.
Are there any instances where this has actually happened, though? Although I don’t oppose gun ownership, I think this argument for it is rather silly.
The American government seems to encroach ever more on the liberties and privacy of the people, and this is often complained about, yet the armed American populace doesn’t seem to have had the slightest effect on the process. In much of Europe, one can legally own a gun or guns, and it doesn’t stop the over-mighty state. It is hard to see why the effective disarming of the British population has facilitated the growth of the state – recall that Britain in the late 1940s was pretty much a socialist state (with even road transport nationalised), yet it was perfectly legal to own guns.
As I understand it – and I’m open to correction on this – the Swiss state more or less requires adults (or adult males at any rate) to own firearms and learn how to use them for the purposes of state defence. Interesting idea – some countries ban firearms, others make only very few rules, others make them compulsory. Either way, it makes no difference to how intrusive or regulating the state is.
People can own guns and still vote for a regulating state. Possession of a gun does not make one a libertarian, and widespread possession of guns does not stop any state becoming ever more intrusive if it wants to.
EG
“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock…”
Harry Lime, The Third Man.
Switzerland is the dullest country in Europe.
“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock…”
Harry Lime, The Third Man.
Switzerland is the dullest country in Europe.
Are there any instances where this has actually happened, though?
Hard to prove a negative. There are plenty of examples of gun control preceding or coinciding with massive violations of other civil liberties. In particular, it seems to be a precursor to genocide. No link to hand, but I believe it was Dave Kopel did some research on this connection.
Gun ownership, like voting and property rights, is one of those necessary but not sufficient conditions for a free society. People tend to look for the “magic bullet”, the one thing that will guarantee a result, but its more complicated than that.
Let’s not forget the most wonderful thing about Switzerland; mountains, covered in snow and perfect for sliding down over Christmas and the New Year.
I don’t believe that, although perhaps it depends in part on how one defines “free.”
Democracy is not a necessary precondition of a free society, nor is it inevitable that a democratic society will in fact be free. It is, I think, a peculiarly American idea that democracy = liberty, together with the other transatlantic idea that national freedom = individual freedom. Democracy tends to erode freedom beyond a certain point, as the electorate learns how to vote themselves rich at the expense of everyone else. The history of the 20th century shows just how often national freedom has resulted in the destruction of personal freedom.
Property rights are essential for a capitalist market to function effectively, and in practice property rights (with the rule of law) are pretty much necessary for freedom in any meaningful sense of the word.
The right to own a gun is really irrelevant as far as the freedom of society is concerned. France is less free than Britain, by any reasonable measure, and has a more intrusive and regulating state – yet it permits gun ownership and Britain does not. Germany also permits gun ownership, as does that paragon of EU statism, Belgium. Austria is probably even more regulated, yet has more liberal gun laws. There is simply no connection beween gun ownership and the freedom of a society.
Whilst it may be true that gun control has preceded genocide, it is not the case that gun control will necessarily be followed by genocide, nor that an absence of gun control will of itself prevent genocide. I think it’s paranoid and disingenuous to try and link the two.
Much of it is down to cultural factors, and what may be valid in one culture may not be at all workable in another. Look at the proliferation of weapons in the middle east, where a Kalashnikov is a badge of virility (in the same way as are wearing a moutache, liberal use of black hair dye and persecution of homosexuals) – this is utterly alien to most of European culture and it is only logical that gun law which works in one of these places is unlikely to work in another. Equally, the effects of having an armed population are radically different in the two cultures. How many dictatorships are there in lightly armed Europe? And how many in heavily armed Arab states?
Quite frankly, if you pick the data appropriately you could probably show that the least free countries in the world are the ones with the most lax gun laws. The logical connection between a free society and gun ownership just doesn’t exist.
I think it should also be recalled that the American right to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with keeping the state in check or with the sovereignty of the individual, but everything to do with the fact that an armed citizenry is cheaper to maintain for national defence than a standing army – this state pragmatism is why it became a constitutionally protected right. It’s not dissimilar to the compulsory keeping of guns in Switzerland, at least in concept.
I would also say that I simply do not believe there would be mass armed resistance if the US government decided to gradually tighten up gun law with a view to a general ban. Some people would for sure revolt, take to the hills or hide their guns – but mass resistance? No, I don’t think that would happen at all.
EG
Utter rubbish, usually said by people who have never actually been there or who have not made the effort to find out what it has to offer, which is rather a lot.
Also they have produced many of the worlds leading companies, not just ‘cockoo clocks’, they also have the highest GDP per capital of any country in Europe with a significent population.
Whilst I haven’t been to Switzerland for 20 years or so, I spent a long time in Berne off & on working with both the Swiss & Brits. I came away liking it but not wanting to live there.
The locals told me that due to the large number of weapons at home, thit did lead to higher incidences of crime, but generally crimes of passion where jealousy overcame rationality.
I thought that Berne was a fascinating Medieval city but greater Berne was rather dull. The mountans were amazing & I took the cable-car up to Piz Gloria a couple of times to fill my weekends but I’m not the outdoor type.
They certainly had a passion for doing things right, whether engineering, running trains on time or street sweeping. Shopping hours were much more relaxed than nearby germanic countries where saturday mornings were spent window-shopping because that was all you could do.
Compared to other businesses in Europe working for a Canadian Company, they certainly had the highest standards and expectations for the software we provided, a major culture shock for the Canucks.
They weren’t big on jokes or wordplay though, their humour was more slapstick.
Politically, it seems that the Swiss generally disliked people from other Cantons & in more rural areas it was often the people in the next valley. Berne being the Capitol was an unhappy compromise between Swiss French & Swiss German but since the power was in the Cantons, nobody worried too much.
Wrong. You clearly know nothing about large areas of the USA and I am not taking about lunatics in log cabins
Switzerland does seem like a great country yet I hear that the Swiss have ridiculously heavy penalties for dropping litter. Not that I’m a litterbug, but…
But as far as pleasent experiences in Europe go, whilst on holiday in Vienna last summer I was pleasently surprised to find that people go swimming in the Danube without worrying about leaving their belongings by the side of the river open to all to see. I knew Austria had a very low crime rate, but actually being able to swim (naked) in the Danube whilst leaving wallet, camera etc in the open is a er, liberating feeling.
EG, while I generally agree with what you’re saying, consider that the only people who are capable of asserting their freedom are the armed ones. I don’t think gun ownership is an infallible means to freedom, but there is always someone who would take freedom away. If the individual doesn’t possess some way to physically retain their freedom, they probably won’t be able to keep it.
As I have argued before, RKBA is not per se a defence against despotism. Private gun ownership was widespread in Iraq.
RKBA is nothing more than a component in the machinery of freedom. It is, however, an indispensible component.
Back to Switzerland: it is certainly not dull, as someone said above. Zurich is quite a fun place, as is Basel. I can also recommend the wonderful Grindelwald area in the spring when all the flowers pop up on the mountainsides. Fantastic.
The Swiss are also leaders in sectors such as science research, such as CERN laboratories in Geneva, heavy engineering, as well as the better-known sectors such as banking.
Hey….. Is there a forum attached to this website that these things can be discussed in ?
Back to the point I made about how can you be ‘pro gun’ and yet still restrict prople from carrying ‘ground to air missiles’.
Someone said that “It seems to me that there are differences between weapons which by their vary nature are indiscriminate (i.e. explosive ‘area attack weapons’ rather than those which attack individual people) and that is probably the only meaningful criteria for deciding of a weapons is reasonable for use by an individual person or best kept for some sort of collective institutiona”
Well, how can one say that the spray of bullets from my AK47 into my neighbourhood as I defend myself against a homeless person , is less indiscriminate than Billy Bob’s rocket taking out his neighbours helicopter as he trespasses over Billy Bobs unpopulated farmland.
It seems like the only reason for allowing firearms is because they have been historically ‘accepted’ as a method of defence, as opposed to say swords or mini (non indiscriminate) flamethrowers.
Re: the archive entry you link to:
Where has the fair Natalija Radic disappeared ? We miss her.
Andy Mo, there is no “perfect” rule in my view governing issues such as what the limits should be. I personally think machine guns or rapid-fire guns are a no-no especially in densely populated areas. This is another example of how different localities should be allowed to set the rules rather than submit to a central one-size fits-all approach. This is in fact pretty much how it works in different parts of the US.
There is no separate forum to discuss such issues on this blog. We prefer it if they get discussed when a relevant posting is put up. We regularly get to write about issues like crime, self-defence, guns, weapons, the law, so there will be plenty of chances for you to put your views across. Welcome aboard. However, be aware that most of us are lunatics so be ready for bracing debate!
Re: Switzerland being dull.
Utter rubbish, usually said by people who have never actually been there or who have not made the effort to find out what it has to offer, which is rather a lot.
Switzerland: it is certainly not dull, as someone said above. Zurich is quite a fun place.
i lived in zurich for 4 years. it is not as dull as the rest of switzerland but still one of the dullest cities in europe. believe me.
entrepreneurial activity is of vital importance for the wealth of a nation, but it is not the sole benchmark by which to judge a place.
why is edinburgh consistantly voted as the best place to live in the uk, despite the fact that scotland’s economy is more sluggish than the rest of the uk?
Just wanted to point out the obvious. Guns are like abortion in that if you outlaw either, they are not eradicated, just hidden. People who need them will get them, only the skill level goes down (therefore the cost to society goes up).
Funny how the federal government has been able to steadily increase its intrusion and regulation over the past century with no meaningful opposition then, isn’t it? The government of the USA does not seem to be noticeably bothered that its citizens often have guns, & it really doesn’t stop them doing what they want. There will be no armed rebellion against a mighty state in the US, and to think the people will rise up against their domestic oppressors because the right to keep arms enables them so to do is fantasy.
Incorrect. The populations of the Warsaw Pact nations were largely disarmed, but this didn’t stop open rebellion in Germany (1955), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) or Poland (1980s). Nor did it stop rebellion inside the USSR itself – remember Novocherkassk? Or consider the non-violent protest movement spawned by Ghandi in India. The threat of violence is not the only way to stand up for your rights.
Furthermore, it is simply not the case that widespread firearms ownership means governments will not oppress. There really is NO direct connection between the degree of personal liberty in a nation and the extent to which the citizens are allowed to own guns.
It’s an army on the cheap & avoids the political issues of a standing army (contentious at the time, less so now), which is why it’s in the constitution. Reading the Amendment, and considering the circumstances in which the US found itself at the time, the intent is obvious & has nothing at all to do with the rights of the people or preventing despotism.
But hereabouts, if you can buy a gun on the open free market and blast the crap out of burglars with impunity, then that seems enough to earn top place.
EG
And apparently you would force on victims your personal choice to be helpless, and have the victims of burglars unarmed and begging for their lives before they are put to death or permanently maimed by these psychotics.
You are despicable.
Really?
I don’t think so. I have said several times on this blog that I support the ownership of firearms by private citizens for the defence of life and property. Indeed, I said in this very thread “I don’t oppose gun ownership.” But then, if you’d read what I actually said you’d know this, wouldn’t you?
Actually I’m quite a nice bloke once you get to know me 🙂
You, however, appear not to realise that ‘irony’ is more than just a property of steel. Still, takes all sorts.
EG
Baltik: as I live in Edinburgh maybe I can offer something of an explanation; it is quite small for a major city and has a very nice balance of scenery and greenery to complement the old buildings and so on. It is on the coast backed by a number of pronounced hills with the castle sitting on an extinct volcanoe. So aside from the various societies, great resteraunts, independent cinemas, the summer festivals and so on, Edinburgh has a marvellous geographic ‘character’ that makes it a particularly attractive place to live. One of the things I love doing is running from my flat in the west end down to the parliament and across Salisbury Craggs and up to Arthur’s Seat with the sun rising ahead of you at 9am – the views of the city and the sea from up there at that time of the morning can be breathtaking.
It is maybe not a libertarian heaven (the majority politics is socialist or even to the left thereof…) but it is aesthetically beautiful – in fact I think I’m going to miss this place when I move this summer. Must do that Salisbury Craggs run more often..
I agree with Euan. It is inconceivable that Americans might have an armed rebellion against an oppressive government.
Well, how can one say that the spray of bullets from my AK47 into my neighbourhood as I defend myself against a homeless person , is less indiscriminate than Billy Bob’s rocket taking out his neighbours helicopter as he trespasses over Billy Bobs unpopulated farmland.
How about you come back and talk about “sprays” of bullets when you’ve actually fired a rifle similar to the AK47? As it is, you’ve demonstrated an unfortunate tendancy to interpret things you see on TV as having some connection to reality.
And of course, the silly references to homeless people and shooting down helicopters doesn’t help much.
It seems like the only reason for allowing firearms is because they have been historically ‘accepted’ as a method of defence, as opposed to say swords or mini (non indiscriminate) flamethrowers.
Swords were the method of defense in Japan. Which is why the ruling class banned the merchant and peasent classes from owning them. Sort of like with guns…
Euan
In citing East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Novocherkassk you’re arguing against yourself. In each case they were crushed. That’s the point.
On Switzerland: yeah, for the most part it’s pretty dull. On the other hand, at least in Geneva, Lausanne & Zurich, there’s enough interesting stuff going on if you know where to look. Most stuff works, is built well & cared for, which is damn refreshing compared to the shoddy state of much of the UK. On the other hand, the discipline & control which permeates much of the country is probably the flipside of the same characteristic. The relative feeling of anarchy & freedom is what used to make the UK seem so exciting to visit when I lived in Switzerland.
Democracy-wise, & in terms of people feeling involved in the political decisions which affected their lives, I’ve never lived anywhere where people felt so involved, were more likely to discuss issues in bars etc.
As to whoever made the point about CERN/Switzerland, actually a lot of CERN is in France. The buildings sit on the border, most if not all of the big particle accelerator is under French soil, & it’s a *gulp* pan-european project, Switzerland being only one of the 20 countries involved
Surely on a libertarian basis, one should criticise CERN anyway as a statist boondoggle, doing research which private enterprise could do much better, no?
I do agree about Swiss industry though; they have a long tradition of fine craftsmanship & engineering, & provided you’re willing to pay a certain price, they deliver some quality goods (though increasingly they’re just designing things & getting them manufactured in the far east, along with most of the rest of the Western world). Still, picked up a Studer tape deck recently on ebay; tank-like engineering from the 1980s, now at a bargain price :).
Aargh! I am sick of hearing about “the non-violent protest movement spawned by Ghandi in India”. A non-violent protest depends entirely upon the authority being essentially good-hearted and caring about the protestors.
Only inconceivable to you.
Folks at Lexington and Concord thought differently, and folks who aren’t Gun Fearing Wussies in the US do as well today.
But don’t trouble yourself … since you choose to not keep and bear arms, you will end up obeying those that do, regardless of the outcome. As one of the obedient sheep, your opinions will eventually not matter.
You will simply do what a future Fascist or Stalinist dictator demands, or you will stand aside while us responsible folks clean up the mess afterwards.
I simply read what you typed.
If one cannot use firearms on any home invader, regardless of his supposed intent, then what is the point to possession?
When you invade someone’s property, it is up to you to prove your good intentions. Any prudent person should be able to assume you intend evil and respond immediately. Not doing so puts the homeowner at risk.
And yes, I do get very humorless when the subject of basic human rights pops up.
That paragraph tells us a lot about you, Andy. An AK47 is a rifle and is designed to kill individual people. Even a sub-machinegun is an individual weapon which can be used with great discrimination and not to just kill everyone in an aircraft, and so it really quite different in nature to a explosive guided missile. Sure, any firearm (not just an AK47) can ‘spray’ bullets around if fired by an idiot, but so what? Reckless use of a weapon should be a crime much like reckless use of a car or boat or aircraft. I am all in favour of people owning cars and boats and aircraft too. Clearly you have no common sense at all and as you are seem to just regard people who argue for private ownership of weapons as ‘white niggers’ called Billy Bob, I suspect you are not worth engaging in serious conversation.
I did mean to go on to say that it would not have mattered if the rebels in these cases had had firearms (and it is in fact wrong to assume they were wholly unarmed, esp. in the case of Hungary and Czechoslovakia). A few hundred, or even a few thousand people, armed or not, are simply no match for a determined army. I also should have said that although there are many examples in history of partisan bands and armed civilians successfully standing up to over-mighty states, there are rather more examples of mighty states breaking such rebellions and insurrections with relative ease. Naturally, people tend to overplay the the former and ignore the latter.
The idea I was trying to get across is that one does not need a gun in the hand to make one’s point. If the state is willing to listen (e.g. Poland), the gun is superfluous. If the state is determined not to listen (e.g. Novocherkassk), it really makes no odds whether you have a gun or not, your head will be broken either way.
See above. If the authority is so disposed, non-violence will work. If it is NOT so disposed, and is sufficiently determined, arming the populace will NOT prevent the state from getting its way.
The tinfoil is slipping off the side of your hat.
It is daft to assert that a population that doesn’t own guns is inevitably going to end up under a dictatorship. Whilst gun control may often follow the rise of dictatorship, it does not follow that dictatorship is the inevitable result of gun control.
And surely, if the first thing the dictator does is to confiscate the guns the people own, then the fact that the people obviously owned guns before the dictator popped up (otherwise there would be nothing to confiscate) suggests that their possession of firearms does nothing to prevent dictatorship arising, doesn’t it?
Patently, you did not.
I think the general idea is deterrence first, then action if that fails. Pre-emptively executing someone found inside your home, whilst lawful in some areas, is perhaps an extreme solution, and a somewhat adolescent approach. This is real life, not the movies.
Having said that, there are parts of the world where you probably are highly likely to be killed by any intruder. I don’t know you, and for all I know you live in such an area. However, this doesn’t apply everywhere. In most cases, simply having a gun in your hand is enough to scare off the casual burglar – it isn’t necessary always to use it. Makes me think of the Ghurka myth that once the knife is drawn it must taste blood. Silly.
There is a difference between having the right to kill in defence of life and property (which I support) and having an obligation to do it (which I don’t).
Gun ownership is not a basic human right.
EG
Kristopher, I was trying to be facetious. Apparently I was merely being fecesious.
In respoinse to EG:
“together with the other transatlantic idea that national freedom = individual freedom. ”
If your country is not free then neither are you. National freedom on its own is not sufficient, but it is an essential component for liberty.
“Gun ownership is not a basic human right.”
The right to self defense and the right to posses the means to self defense, such as a gun, is absolutely a basic human right.
“If the state is determined not to listen (e.g. Novocherkassk), it really makes no odds whether you have a gun or not, your head will be broken either way.”
The American revolution disproves this point. So does every other armed resistence to tyranny throughout history.
And in response to zmollusc:
“Guns are like abortion in that if you outlaw either, they are not eradicated, just hidden.”
I think this is a poor argument for anything let alone gun ownership. Child pornography is also driven underground because its illegal. Should we then legalise it?
So effective self-defence is not a basic human right, then?
Real life here aint what passes for real life in England. If you do not want to be “pre-emptively executed”, all you have to do is stay out of my house. Simple really. If you cannot see how utterly reasonable shooting a housebreaker is, it is you who are adolescent or more likley, just divorced from reality.
The Second Amendment is NOT just about a “military on the cheap”. That’s a disgusting libel.
Actually, the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, were quite prepared for the overthrow of tyranny by angry, armed citizens.
Here’s Mr. Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
He wasn’t talking about using breadknives or bodkins, either.
Guns, buddy.
Of course it is. The point is that the gun is not the only way to do it – although in many cases it is of course an effective means.
All I’m trying to get across is the idea that it is folly to consider that ONLY guns make an effective defence. I also object – strongly – to the rather puerile notion that it is somehow NECESSARY to shoot burglars dead. This is a different point than having the RIGHT to do so, although the distinction is patently lost on some.
There seems to be a perception on the part of some that failure to possess a gun will automatically and inevitably lead to perdition. This is untrue, but obviously a common belief in certain circles.
I don’t agree with that. You can have the right to life, liberty, free speech, free assembly and the pursuit of happiness even if your country happens to be governed by another country. Consider, for example, the degree of personal liberty currently enjoyed in many African countries compared to the 1950s. Closer to American experience, look at the history of Liberia.
The successful ones, yes. The unsuccessful ones don’t, however. History has many examples of both. Staying with Russia, what about the Kronstadt rebellion? Organised, armed and professional resistance to the determined state failed utterly. See my point?
Go read the amendment in full. The first phrase states with crystal clarity the purpose of the amendment. You may or may not be aware that the maintenance of a standing army was a contentious political issue at the time, and not only in America. Until 1955, the British government could only lawfully maintain a permanent army by virtue of an annual vote in Parliament.
EG
Clearly you have no common sense at all and as you are seem to just regard people who argue for private ownership of weapons as ‘white niggers’ called Billy Bob, I suspect you are not worth engaging in serious conversation.
and that sentence says a lot about you perry, you vile piece of shit.
Verity – you seem to have mysteriously changed your e-mail address! And suddenly become semi-literate.
Thank you for pointing that out. I would have issued a stern riposte but I’ve been busy strangling kittens and tutting at Africans today. Must dash – it’s nearly time for my daily bath in virgin’s blood.
Pip pip!
Will the real Verity please stand up?
Switzerland is almost perfect except that it has party politics and lacks a hereditary monarch. Step forward, Liechtenstein. The Hapsburgs rule!
If you want excitement go to Detroit– or Amsterdam.
I wonder if liberventionists will ever spot the connection between the pleasantness of a nation and its firm refusal to make war on other nations? Unfortunately, Swiss isolation has developed a few cracks. They caved in to Zionist blackmail about bank deposits, joined the UN and are beginning to talk about some sort of association with the Holy Roman EUmpire.
The citizen-army regulations have been watered down in recent years, but they worked when most needed. The greatest hero of the Second World War was Gen. Henri Guisan. You’ll never see a documentary about him on UK History.
Euan:
“I don’t agree with that. You can have the right to life, liberty, free speech, free assembly and the pursuit of happiness even if your country happens to be governed by another country.”
The problem with this is that it is dependent entirely on the good will of the occupying country, not exactly a firm basis for liberty. It also runs against the generally held view of both conservatives and libertarians that the decentralisation of political power to as local a level as possible is an important component of a free society.
Dont get me wrong, I’m not a fundamentalist on the issue, and I agree that free nations can be as tyrannical as any empire. Nor am I opposed to the excersise of what some migh call ‘imperial power’ when it is necessary, hence my support for regime change in Iraq.
But it remains true as far as I can see that a free nation with a decentralised poltical system is still far better than an outright empire. Ask the Swiss.
“The successful ones, yes. The unsuccessful ones don’t, however. See my point?”
As far as I could see your original point was that there were no successful ones and therefore no reason to favour a well armed citizenry. Of course there are examples of both succesful and unsuccesful resistance. Thats life. Sometimes you win the race and sometimes you dont. But I would have thought that the exsistence of even a few succesful examples was EXACTLY the point.
Euan, you say that ownership of guns is not a basic human right. So what is a “basic human right” in your view, if it does not involve the ability to effectively defend your own life? Of course some libertarians do not believe in natural rights, and defend liberty on utilitarian grounds, but if one takes it as a base condition that rights exist, then the right to defend one’s life seems about as “basic” as it gets.
I get the impression from reading your comments over a period of time, Euan, that you seem fairly comfortable with a fairly authortarian political order.
A_T says tht CERN is a largely state project. Yes I know, but it is certainly impressive.
Someone above in this thread said the Swiss caved into “Zionist pressure about bank deposits”. I think that pressure was pretty legitimate, given the appalling looting of Jewish families’ wealth by the Nazis. The Swiss do have an issue to clear up about this, for all that I generally admire their banking secrecy law and their commitment to privacy.
I hope the Swiss stay out of as many Tranzi organisations as possible. While the Swiss model cannot work for all countries, as some isolationist libertarians like Perry Metzger have argued, it may certainly work in many instances.
And of course the Swiss have, in Roger Federer, the finest tennis player, arguably ever.
And the problem with liberty under independence is that it is dependent entirely on the good will of your own country.
decentralisation of political power to as local a level as possible is an important component of a free society
But by no means an essential one, I would argue. I think liberty increases as the total amount of political power exercised decreases. I don’t think it makes a lot of difference exactly who is doing the exercising, whether dictators, clerks, elected officials or corporations. Liberty under a million accountable bureaucrats working at a low level is just as restricted (in potential) as it is under a single autocrat. Good bureaucrats (hah!) will not unduly prejudice liberty, and nor will a “good Tsar” type of ruler. However, if either are bad the results can be just as poor.
Not really – the point I was answering was the assertion that only armed citizens can assert their freedoms. This is patently untrue, as history shows.
There are cases where armed citizens have successfully resisted tyranny, and cases where tyranny has successfully crushed armed citizens. Likewise for unarmed citizens. The point is that arming the citizenry is no guarantee against tyranny.
I already addressed this issue above, if you’d care to read. Basically, I think it is delusional to consider that guns give the ONLY effective defence in all circumstances.
Pretty much. It works. Given the sordid reality of human nature, some degree of authoritarian control (although not much) is more or less essential. All human societies have some form of ultimate authority governing their conduct, after all.
I believe the state should exercise the minimum possible authority consistent with sound government, but also that where the state is competent to exercise power it should have the freedom to do so within an equitable legal framework. As citizens have rights, so I think do states. If all of this is done within the rule of law, and if there is some limited degree of popular ability to peacefully change the powers of the state, what’s the problem?
EG
“As citizens have rights, so I think do states” – EG
Euan, what are you talking about? Constitutions? I am at a loss to see how the constitutional capacities of the state are like the natural rights of individuals.
I hadn’t visited this thread before this evening, so was naturally interested to note that a soi-disant doppelganger had been posting on my behalf. Thank you to ‘I’m suffering for my art’ and concerned_but_powerless for recognising and pointing out that the style and vocabulary were heavily off. Satire doesn’t work in clogs.
I’m sure Perry has checked into this impostor’s real address.
Jonathan Pearce, “I hope the Swiss stay out of as many tranzi organisations as possible”. I think the headquarters of several tranzis are in Switzerland. The WHO and UNICEF or whatever shelter vast hordes of Wa-Benzes.
Pearce: Switzerland caved into blackmail.
On October 13, 2001, the New York Times reported:
‘Most dormant Swiss bank accounts thought to have belonged to Holocaust survivors were opened by wealthy, non-Jewish people who then forgot about their money.’… ‘A 17-member tribunal based in Zurich was set up in 1997 to investigate the identities of 5,500 foreign accounts and 10,000 Swiss accounts that have lain dormant since the end of the Second World War.
The tribunal said that it had processed about 10,000 claims in response to the list of dormant account names published by the Swiss Bankers’ Association five years ago. Only 200 accounts – containing £6.9 million – could be traced to Holocaust victims.
“It was a very difficult and often sad process,” Alexander Jolles, the secretary-general of the Independent Claims Tribunal, said. “When we first set up the tribunal, we were sure that nearly all these accounts would be those of Nazi victims. But few were.”
Seventy-nine per cent of the accounts declared dormant by the Swiss banks were traced to wealthy families who had lost trace of their money.’
As Norman Finklestein has argued, the settlement was based on extortion:
“The Jewish establishment,” he tells the interviewer, “was in a rush to shake down the Swiss on the banks issue, and used pressure exerted by agencies of the American government – [saying] that if they didn’t pay up, they would be boycotted in the U.S. There is an extortion racket at work here, and for this alone the extortionists should have been thrown out of public life.
“They also put the pressure on to reach an agreement with Switzerland before the Volcker Committee [the international committee that investigated the dormant bank accounts] released its report, because the agreement gave them $1.25 billion, even though it later turned out – according to the Volcker Committee – that the maximum value of the dormant accounts came to a few hundred million dollars.”
Finkelstein even alleges that the Jewish establishment is exaggerating the numbers of survivors. “How is it possible that in 1997, when they started talking with the Swiss humanitarian fund for destitute survivors, they put the number of survivors around the world at a quarter-million, and now they’re talking about close to a million?”
Someone who frequently quotes his mother, both in the book and the interview, Finklestein quotes her now, and asks, “If there are so many survivors, who exactly was murdered in the Holocaust?”
(Ha’aretz Magazine, March 30, 2001)
Most of the $1.25bn obtained by these campaigns is still sitting in a blocked account, unclaimed and fought over by lawyers who are the most obvious beneficiaries.
As Gabriel Schoenfeld wrote in “Commentary” (September 2000) of the smear campaign against Switzerland: “To reprove Swiss neutrality from an office in Washington five decades after the fact, without considering the alternative and what it would have entailed, is to indulge in the worst kind of armchair moralizing”,
Verity – I have a strong feeling that concerned_but_powerless and your imposter are one and the same. They employ a similar fake e-mail address style, not to mention an inability to spell and punctuate correctly.
Check that email address of mine again two-brains and have a little rethink.
Matt O’Halloran, your choice of story is so totally biased and flirts so closely with some ugly views about what happened to the Jews that I would treat it as very questionable, to put it mildly.
Euan Gray, I did read your comments above. I certainly don’t think guns give protection in all circumstances. Where did you get the idea that anyone on this thread thinks that? Don’t create a straw man.
Strange logic: human nature is sordid, so lets give some humans the power to put pervasive force behind thier sordid nature.
No need to. It is fairly obvious that, among others, Kristopher Barrett, Armed Liberal and Kim du Toit tend to the belief that guns are the answer to protection problems. A point of view, of course, and although I understand why people might think like that I do not share their view.
There is to my mind nothing wrong with people owning guns and using them for defence of life and property. My point is that the gun is not the only or even necessarily the best method of providing such defence in all circumstances. Some people, I suspect, get a tad enthusiastic on the subject, and like all enthusiasts can get a little carried away & see their hobby-horse as the answer to all problems.
It’s not really strange. It’s how humanity has worked for all recorded history – or at least those parts of humanity that actually managed to achieve something beyond just staying alive one more day.
I, and I suspect many others of a pragmatic persuasion, would be really happy if the world’s libertarians would put their money where their mouths are and go buy an island or some such and SHOW the world that states, governments and regulations are unnecessary if you want a productive, peaceful and stable society.
Until then, I will retain a preference for and defend a system that, for all its undoubted faults, has proven time and again that it works reasonably well.
EG
“I will retain a preference for and defend a system that, for all its undoubted faults, has proven time and again that it works reasonably well.”
Which system? According to what reference does it ‘work reasonably well’? ‘Liberty’? What are you talking about? You’re drifting off topic, gearbox in neutral, car rolling downhill Euan.
Individuals in a society cede some of their rights to the state, in return for the state giving them (theoretically) order, a uniform code of justice and the ability to spend their time more productively than in a daily struggle for survival against all the other individuals. This happens because it is easier and more efficient than a free-for-all. To this extent states have rights – the rights that the citizens cede to the state. Ultimately, the citizens can recover those rights, or grant more.
States don’t have “natural” rights. The state does not independently exist in nature. It is an artificial construct, but then so are the “natural” rights of man, depending on your point of view.
Taking a secular point of view, man has no more “natural” rights than any other organism, and what we call “natural rights” come from no more than a philosophical view of humanity’s position at (in certain senses) the current peak of the evolutionary process. Why would man have rights that the chimpanzee does not have? Why would the chimpanzee have rights that the domestic dog does not have? And the domestic dog in comparison to a sewer rat? We have only the rights that we arrogate to ourselves, and fundamentally there is no justification for this other than that we, alone among the species on this planet, are intellectually capable by virtue of the ability to think abstractly of doing it and of understanding what we have done.
This develops naturally out of the more religious point of view, that the gods or God created us uniquely, distinct from all other creation, with rights over it and, usually, with a special relationship with the divine. Many people consider this an untenable point of view given our knowledge of how the universe seems to really work, and people have thought so for millennia. As the level of education increases, so does the desire to find a less overtly superstitious excuse for what we do. This of course does not mean the religious explanation is actually wrong, merely that the bien-pensants of every age think it is.
I suppose one could just about say that the idea that man has certain “natural” rights other than those we choose to grant ourselves is an essentially religious position, even if we are making ourselves the divinity. If not, one must explain WHY these rights exist and WHERE they came from. Does our ability to think abstractly grant us specific rights? If so, why? And how – what is the mechanism for the grant? Is it just intelligence, then? If so, is there a graduated level of “right” from blue-green algae all the way up to man? What of intelligent machines, will they have natural rights?
My own view is that humanity has no pre-existing natural rights greater than any other living thing (I am not decided on why things are alive in the first place, though). However, we do have the ability to declare ourselves possessors of rights and to understand what such a declaration means, and indeed we have done exactly that. If our rights are given to us either by ourselves, it seems perfectly reasonable that we can assign them to others. Alternatively, if they are granted by divine fiat, and given that along with this was the grant of free will, we still seem able to assign them because we have the freedom to do so. I don’t see any alternative source for these rights – either we define and grant them ourselves, or they are a divine award. I see no mechanism in nature to do it.
The formation of a government is such a process, in which people assign some of their rights to be exercised by the state, the state then having acquired these rights BUT only on the sufferance of the people, who can recover them for themselves.
It is impossible in practice to come up with an arrangement whereby individual people cede only the rights they personally want to cede. We have to accept that, for example, law and order only works if everyone subjects themselves to the same law, the same judicial process and the same enforcement system. It is therefore necessary to create a system where, to minimise the discontent of the people, the specific rights ceded to the state may from time to time be amended, and in practice some form of more or less democratic system is needed to do this. In this regard, it might be noted that the subject of the thread, Switzerland, is an extremely democratic state.
Long answer to a short question 🙂
EG
Organised government in the form of a state.
6,000 years of recorded human history. It’s not perfect, there are often problems, sometimes we seem to go backwards, but for all in all it works. It works better than anything else tried so far on anything other than the micro scale, hence the desire to see the libertarians practice what they preach & perhaps show that there is a better alternative.
I don’t think I mentioned it in that post, actually.
Er, I don’t think so… I was answering the specific point raised by snide.
EG
Well thanks Euan, a bit long-winded, but now I see at least you didn’t have in mind what I half-suspected you might have had.
I notice you distinguish a ‘religious’ way of thinking about rights from a ‘secular’ way of thinking about rights – but is there really that much to it? Belief, whether in a theoretical construct or a theological construct, necessarily aims at the truth, but can belief ever dispense with uncertainty whilst the believer remains rational?
But relax, although rights may be constructs which we rationally believe in, I do not consider the State in the same way. The State is a means to an end, not an end which is itself demanding of belief.
Lefties would argue the State is a means to Social Justice rather than leaving people alone to their Liberty. Are lefties more likely to be religious or to go in for grand metaphysics than libertarians I wonder?
No I was second-guessing you on my mention of liberty.
On your other responses there – if you’re going to be that general then perhaps your points weren’t worth making in the first place? 🙁
Hey, never use one word when forty-six will suffice! I know I bang on a bit sometimes, but I just try to ensure my idea is explained properly and fully. Should probably become a real politician & get paid for it.
I agree. The pragmatic conservative would say the end is sound government of all of the people, by other people having some degree of authority from the rest of the people, in the best interests of most of the people. Not quite as snappy as Gettysburg, but a bloody sight more realistic.
Interesting question, and my answer is ‘no.’
The communist and the libertarian are in many respects just as idealistic, other-worldy and self-righteous as each other. I think there’s little to choose in terms of practicality too, with the communist perhaps leading only by a neck.
There’s something quasi-religious about radical politics whether of left or right. Now we’re apparently too clever to believe in God, we find other religions – and the holy writ of Saint Karl of Highgate is revered by its adherents as much as synoptic Gospel ever was. Much the same can be said of the mystic scrolls attributed to the venerable Hayek, of course.
The fundamentalist reads ultimate truth in the Bible, the Marxist in the Communist Manifesto, and the libertarian in The Road to Serfdom. Each is equally convinced he has the only Way, Truth and Light, equally dismissive of contradictory opinion and often equally apocalyptic in rhetoric. Similar phrases are used, and these are a dead giveaway – such as “read the literature” – indicating a creed which defines the Way. Although I have certain religious predispositions, I am fundamentally suspicious of any doctrine presented as an absolute truth, especially any political or economic philosophy.
Pragmatism is best – if it works then do it, if it doesn’t work but the theory is perfect then don’t waste your time. Really, I wish people would spend more time reading Machiavelli than Mill.
I see I’m getting long winded again, so I’ll shut up now.
EG
The should be “little to choose in terms of impracticality,” of course. Probably.
EG
Pragmatism is a method, not a set of values or way of life and so it is no kind of substitute for this sort of thing. It’s alright saying ‘let’s just do whatever works’ but one has to have a goal or an idea just to define that in the first place. Come on Euan! Pragmatisim is no kind of hiding place…
Anyway, I am (and this thread is) slipping into neutral and drifting downhill now even if you aren’t…
So even though this is a bit daft now we’ve been talking off topic for the last few posts, do you have a particular take on Austria along the same lines as Perry’s take on Switzerland?
If they are not, then why do politicians insist on having firearmed individuals around them?
If they are not, then why do police resort to them?
If they are not, then why is it necessary to disarm a population before inflicting genocide upon it?
Without firearms, the only means to self-defence are either superior skill/strength, or an infant-like dependency on the state, and a hope that dialing 911 won’t result in the police finding your corpse.
Self-defense is a human right. The weak and the non-martial artists out there also have this right. I will support their right to buy the emergency tools needed to use this right.
concerned_but_powerless – why don’t *you* read *my* post again, “two brains”, I clearly didn’t say your e-mail addresses were identical.
Because politicians are high value targets much more likely to be the subject of premeditated murder than Joe Bloggs who lives round the corner. Also, they are prone to attack by the disturbingly large number of paranoid monomaniacs who, for whatever reason, decide they must be cleansed from the face of the earth.
You’d be amazed, I am quite sure, at just how often the police do NOT resort to using them. The UK, for example, is one of the very few countries left where the police are not routinely armed – largely because there is no real need for them to be armed. This is nothing to do with the “disarmed population” either – the British police have NEVER been routinely armed. Also, in many other countries the use of firearms is hardly a first resort by the police.
If faced with an armed criminal, one would expect the police to have arms themselves, even if it is not necessary to actually use them. However, it is most certainly not the case that first resort to arms is always the best way.
The implication of this statement is that disarming the populace will inevitably lead to genocide. This is mendacious crap, and paranoid to boot.
I really don’t like the term ‘genocide,’ not least because it is the wrong word to use for incidents of large scale systematic murder (unless one were attempting the annihilation of the entire human species) and even in its somewhat silly legal sense it is invariably applied inaccurately to the extent it is now largely meaningless. So, perhaps you could clarify what exactly you mean by ‘genocide’ before any useful discussion could take place.
If you mean systematic liquidation of a given ethnic or religious group, such as that of (inter alia) the Jews by the Nazis, then it has to be countered that this sort of thing doesn’t really happen all that often. There are, amazingly enough, societies in the world where people generally don’t have, or are not allowed to have weapons and genocide has failed to happen.
EG
Just stumbled in to find I’ve missed the party.
Oh well, self-defence is a human right. Denying the means to self-defence is an abrogation of that right. The most practical and effective means of personal self-defence available to ordinary mortals is a gun. Denying access to guns, particularly denying the weak, frail, elderly, disabled and all others who would be at a disadvantage in a struggle with a fit strong assailant, is to deny all those potential victims of the most effective tool they might use for self-defence.
How can a country be boring? Is it featureless? monotonous? Does it rabbit on about computers while standing in the kitchen at parties? Switzerland works reliably, that might make it seem uneventful, but personally I prefer reliability to turmoil. Some might claim the Swiss are staid and conservative, but take a look at their pornography restrictions, firearms restrictions, alchohol restrictions and you will quickly find that the Swiss have access to much that is restricted in most other countries without it giving rise to social problems, perhaps their lack or repression is a factor in the development of their apparent self-control and maturity? Nice people (dreadful word ‘nice’), wonderful landscape, clean and safe conurbations, high living standards, what more do yo want. Perry has expressed his intent to return to the USA, much as I admire the US I’m much more likely to relocate to Switzerland.
Fine, and true enough in many (but not all) circumstances.
However, the error betrayed by this attitude is the assumption that humanity will inevitably and unavoidably live in violent and dangerous circumstances where the possession of a gun is the only practical means of dealing with the inevitable violent assault, that nothing can be done about this, and the tacit assumption that burglars are always armed, will always stand and fight, and will always use their firearms in the fight.
None of these assumptions are necessarily true.
Another way of dealing with self-defence in society at large, and it is not so much an either/or choice but simply another thing that should be done, is to reduce the likelihood of violent crime and crime against person and property. There are several ways to do this, some of which are proposed below:
effective and efficient policing & elimination of corruption and indolence therein;
reformed judicial system such that offenders are rather more likely to be jailed or suffer meaningfully deterrent punishment;
education from an early age in the importance of private property as the basis for a free and open society;
a pre-requisite for the above is that the opinion formers within society need themselves to understand that the concept of private property is essential to the functioning of a capitalist economy and a free society – at present they do not seem to understand this;
severe penalties for the use of firearms or any other weapon in the commission of a crime;
tort reform such that a person may not be awarded compensation for hurt received during the commission of a crime;
removing as much as possible the presence of addictive narcotics from the street, which in turn reduces the number of unemployable addicts, which in turn reduces the (high) number of property crimes committed to fund drug habits;
the reduction of welfare and the phased elimination of government-owned or -subsidised housing stock.
Successful and rigorous implementation of the above would result in a significant decrease in crimes against person and property. Whilst there is in my view nothing wrong with allowing householders to use guns in defence of their lives and property, the foregoing measures would substantially reduce the probability of them ever actually needing to do this. Furthermore, it would result in an overall more peaceful and orderly society, from which everyone benefits.
Simply resorting to the gun alone without making the slightest effort to deal with the actual problem is an admission of defeat, and it condemns us all to live in an unnecessarily violent society – NOT because of the presence of guns, but because nothing has been done to remove the problems which make gun ownership more necessary.
In the context of personal self-defence, the gun is simply a medication for the sickness, and not a lasting one at that. If you have a nail in your foot, do you keep taking painkillers or do you remove the nail?
EG
Switzerland’s great. I’m an American who lives and works here. Judging by the number of Germans (easily a plurality of our employees, as well as top management), they know that the business climate is better here as well.
Euan,
Your assertion that the problems of crime in our society can be mitigated is true and valid, however I doubt that they can be eradicated. Unless you can Guarantee that we will not be victimised then we should be entitled to effective means of self-defence if we are victimised.
You can’t guarantee that, nor can the politicians, police, or any other body with an interest in the problem, so ultimately, however well the problem of crime is controlled (and in the UK that’s not well at all), some of us will unwillingly find ourselves in situations where self-defence is necessary, and in such circumstances we should be permitted the most effective tools that we can lay our hands on, in some cases that will be pepper sprays, in others it will be the gun.
I would love to see a more rigorous approach to crime and criminals, and it may yet happen, there sems to be a growing backlash against the liberal attitudes of our policy makers which could result in a turning of the tide – let’s hope so.
I agree. I have always said I have no objection to this.
I did not say that crime could be eradicated by the means I proposed. However, I do say it could be significantly reduced, and I think you agree with this.
What I would not like to see is the rise of so-called ‘gated communities,’ which, whilst they might seem ok to many libertarians, are no more than symptoms of a collapsing and decayed society – what happens outside the gates?
It is not necessary to retreat behind the walls, gun in hand, as the ONLY POSSIBLE way of dealing with the problem. There are other and better ways to solve the problems. Although this will never eliminate the need for guns, it will substantially reduce the frequency with which they would have to be used and it would give a more peaceful and stable society. Why anyone would object to that, I cannot for the life of me see.
EG