So, first off this article is just rife with factually incorrect and illogical statements. It’s really an insulting article, and not surprisingly the author looks like a person I could mug just by yelling at loud enough.

I want to focus on this statement: “Which would mean that your right to carry your gun trumps the right of everyone else to say, this is a place where we've decided we don't want people bringing guns.”

That’s absolutely not true. I doubt many self-defense advocates would ever say that a convicted felon standing before a judge has a right to bring a gun to his sentencing. There’s actually a really simply trade off that everyone makes (even people who do not carry guns): the tradeoff is that I will surrender my self-defense capability because I am entrusting another person to defend me. Or, in other words: “The court house is full of security guards with guns, so I don’t need to bring mine.” Or, “This Movie Theater likely employs security, so I can feel safe here without having my self-defense capabilities.”

Every logical and thinking person goes through this decision making process, if you do not carry a gun or any other weapon, you’re likely thinking something along the lines of “My society and community is full of police officers with guns, I don’t need to be concerned about my physical safety because the police are there to protect me.” (Ha!)

Often people who practice conceal carry will come into pacts with friends, where as one or two people within the group is armed and people within the group trust their friends to protect them. This enables the whole group to be safe even though only one or two is carrying.

So, there’s a very logical and rational trade off BY THE INDIVIDUAL to surrender their self-defense, however there has NEVER been a COLLECTIVE decision whereas, “we’ve decided we don’t want people to bring guns.” The individual decision has always been made based off of a simple test: “Does this place provide adequate physical security for me, my loved ones, and those around me?” If your answer is clearly “No” then as a person who doesn’t practice self-defense your only logical solution is to GTFO of the area pronto.

In some private businesses and government buildings it has been decided that guns are not welcome as a policy, and if that private business or government building fails to provide alternate methods of safety (guards of some sort), and if the illusion that "police will come to help” is clearly false, than it is completely illogical to demand citizens be disarmed.

The only thing close to where the collective society has determined (“we’ve decided” as the author put it) that certain individuals must have their right to self-defense infringed is, for example, if they’re standing tall before a judge or they beat their wife or a doctor said they are crazy, or they are otherwise a menace to society as determined by a jury.

Just to reiterate: gun owners do not make decisions based upon fear, but upon their reason and personal interests, based upon their assessment of a given situation.

@ fidelity:

i have a few qualifications to add to your last sentence there, in order to make it more accurate:

"Just to reiterate: (SOME) gun owners do not make decisions based upon fear, but upon their reason (OR LACK THEREOF) and personal interests, based upon their (NOT INFALLIBLE) assessment of a given situation."

again, you're giving too much credit to too many of your brothers in arms (and humans in general, actually).

Yes Dan 'Let's Attack Iraq' Savage, it's gun advocates that want to create a society governed by fear.....oh shit, I think Ahmadinejad is hiding under my bed...and he's got NUKES! Gotta run.....

"you’re likely thinking something along the lines of 'My society and community is full of police officers with guns, I don’t need to be concerned about my physical safety because the police are there to protect me.' "

No, you fearful little coward. Most people simply aren't afraid of all those other people out there. We don't have to look over our shoulders every 10 seconds and assess each person as a potential threat in our local cafe. Because we know they are probably not carrying guns. We know that fearful little cowards like yourself are at home, with their guns, being afraid of other people. And we don't want to give you the right to bring your fearful, cowardly guns into our cafe. Because we just want to get coffee in the morning, not reenact some childish form of heroism we dreamed of while playing Call of Duty the night before.

The entire notion of owning a gun for self-defense is predicated on fear.

I do not carry a gun for self-defense in part because I trust the police to do their jobs, but also in part because I live in Portland, OR and in my 10000+ days on this planet I have never been in a situation in which I thought I needed to take someone else's life to maintain my own well-being.

Things might be different if I were in a more dangerous part of the country, or the world. I understand as we saw at Clackamas that violence can easily strike without warning anywhere. However, I feel that the risk of carrying a gun outweighs the risk that a situation might arise in which I need a run, because ultimately I do not live in constant fear for my own security.

@human - simply because your choices are based upon arbitrary whim does not mean that all of society makes decisions this way. The entire science of economics, as an example, is based on the notion that people make self-interested decisions. My proposition on the choice of physical safety is entirely predicated on self-interest.

@myscreennameistaken – Perhaps I live a more compelling and rich life than you do, and thus I am exposed to more danger on a day-to-day level than the typical person, or perhaps I am just more cognitive of that danger than your naïve self. As an example of this, I’ve done gang outreach before in Portland, Oakland, and Seattle and while doing this I’ve met all sorts of colorful fellas who have very interesting ideas about the use of violence. The majority of my friends are veterans who dealt much violence on innocent people. I’ve had law enforcement point their gun at me at least a half dozen times simply for helping other people. I have received death threats from people just for talking about why we should end the wars overseas. I’ve been in street fights, had weapons pointed at me by folks, I’ve even stopped a few crimes in progress. One time, I even helped a lady cross the street.

I know you don’t think there’s evil people in your world, in your café, but trust me: they are around us always. I don’t live in fear of them, I embrace them as inevitable wherever I go, and I have an obligation to protect people from them. Awareness is not equivalent to fear, there is a distinct difference.

@Aestro – you’re proposing “run” as a method of self-defense, supplemented by the police. That’s your self-defense mechanism when the chips fall. It’s a fair enough defense, for sure, very logical too, however, it does not answer one specific problem: what about the people who can’t run away? You expect the police to show up, and for a combination of reasons, I have less faith in police than you do.


Tell you fellas what: guarantee me that this nation will never experience genocide, politicide, or tyranny in which an armed rebellion is the only option. It would be hilarious if you could please write those words, I would very much enjoyment in reading them. It is not that I fear these things, it is that I am aware that they can happen.

@ fidelity:

i never said anything disputing the fact that people act in their own self-interest. of course they do.

what i did say was that someone's self-interest isn't always in the best interest of the rest of us -- sometimes that self-interest is unnecessarily dangerous to others, and at that point it ceases to be tolerable.

@fidelity That is exactly the kind of talk this article is addressing. Especially your last paragraph.

@Aestro - I think you misspelled the sentence I was asking you to write.

It should look something more like, "I [Aestro] guarantee you that this nation will never experience genocide, politicide, or tyranny in which an armed rebellion is the only option."

Unless you're unwilling to write these words because it's just an absurd and dumb notion. The article in question does not mention "genocide" or "tyranny" or "politicide" - so, I do not see how my request for this sentence, from you, is at all relevant to the above article.

http://youtu.be/k4qOKybOKXs