“In the man or in the jackass?”

[TPaine7]

The Founders were not perfect, nor did our form of government spring in its current form from their minds or pens. Slavery was not their only problem, either. In the beginning, women could not vote, neither could white men who were not property owners.

Benjamin Franklin, who objected to the property requirement, eloquently and famously skewered the flawed principle:

Today a man owns a jackass worth fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies. The man in the meantime has become more experienced, his knowledge of the principles of government, and his acquaintance with mankind, are more extensive, and he is therefore better qualified to make a proper selection of rulers — but the jackass is dead and the man cannot vote. Now gentlemen, pray inform me, in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?

Source: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/rightsof/vote.htm

One of the many reasons I oppose gun control is that it makes a very similar mistake. Now there is an appearance of various schools of thought within gun control. To some, there is no such thing as a right to arms or to armed self defense. There are only privileges to be granted at government whim.

Others (like Obama) say there is a right, but show they actually believe in “keeping guns out of our inner cities” and ensuring that people cannot carry concealed. (From their perspective, open carry is obviously unthinkable, so this is tantamount to no bearing of arms, in direct defiance of the Second Amendment.)

Anyone who thinks this through can see that these schools are identical in the real world. But garden variety gun control typically makes an exception for those whose jobs entail carrying cash and other valuables. New York, for instance, has a system that recognizes business licenses for concealed carry. In the New Orleans disaster, while private citizens had their lawfully owned guns seized under color of law, other civilians—employees of business and property owners—carried fully automatic military rifles in public.

If you transport diamonds, garden variety gun control will admit that you should be granted special permission to defend it and yourself with a gun. The fact that others may want to take the diamonds from you puts you in special danger.

If you transport your children, garden variety gun control will often deny that you should be granted special permission to defend them and yourself with a gun. It doesn’t even matter if your children have been threatened or harmed by a stalker. In New York City, for instance, special permission to bear arms is not generally granted to ordinary people because they or their families have been assaulted.

So, with apologies to Franklin, I ask the obvious question: Where does the right (or the justification for specially granted government permission) to armed self-defense lie, in the human being or in the property?

[appal_jack]

1. word-up TPaine7

They are called Human Rights and Civil Liberties (rather than mere property rights and bunch-o-stuff liberties) for a reason.

k&r

-app

on-edit: too late to 'r', but my kick remains.

[TPaine7]

2. It would be interesting if a (rational and civil) supporter of gun control

weighed in.

I am interested to hear other perspectives.

[iverglas]

3. BOO

I have no doubts as to why you oppose firearms control.


The fact that others may want to take the diamonds from you puts you in special danger.

If you transport your children, garden variety gun control will often deny that you should be granted special permission to defend them and yourself with a gun.


Hmm. Does transporting children ordinarily put one in special danger? Maybe if one's children are named "Hilton" or something ...



It doesn’t even matter if your children have been threatened or harmed by a stalker. In New York City, for instance, special permission to bear arms is not generally granted to ordinary people because they or their families have been assaulted.


What an excellent example of good public policy.


Now, if you could only go back and relive those events when your family was terrorized by a man with a firearm, and do whatever it is you think you could/should have done to put an end to it but couldn't/didn't do, maybe the rest of the world would be spared your acting out of these difficulties.

Rational and civil people see the man with the firearm as the problem. And don't see more of them as the solution. Really.

[pipoman]

4. In this hypothetical anecdote

what is the solution to the problem from your standpoint?

"Rational and civil people see the man with the firearm as the problem. And don't see more of them as the solution. Really."

[TPaine7]

5. Equal protection of the Laws. . .

Hmm. Does transporting children ordinarily put one in special danger? Maybe if one's children are named "Hilton" or something ...

So Elite people merit the protection of arms—the wealthy, the famous (or infamous), the political upper echelons, the judges and district attorneys, the A list movie stars. All of these people are “special” and deserve special permission to carry arms as they are in special danger.

Paris Hilton, that paragon of human excellence, probably would merit “special” consideration. Even if she were refused at first, she could pull a few strings, make a political contribution or two, and viola, the Chief of Police would certify that she is a person of sterling character under direct and immediate personal danger.

The non-Elite, regardless of their degree of real-world danger, almost never seem to be in the “special” danger that merits the protection of arms. There are exceptions of course, when even the consciences of the armed, privileged Elite are tickled by a heart wrenching case. But they are, as I said, exceptions. Danger is clearly not the actual issue, elite status is.


What an excellent example of good public policy.

Yes, Paris Hilton and her family merit protection because their wealth exposes them to danger. Ordinary folk can almost never attain that elusive endangered status, even if they’ve been assaulted, are under threat of death, and have protective orders (a very sick joke). I think justice would be served if a few roles were switched.

Let the Chief of Police (a desk job), the governors, the mayors, the movie stars, the heiresses, the CEOs, the Justices and the presidential candidates enjoy the protection of court orders. Let the sane “common folk” with clean records and provable danger get round-the-clock protection until they can be trained and qualified to carry concealed.

I’d give it a week at most before the Elite would become “gun nuts” and change all the laws accordingly. “Equal protection of the laws” would take on a strange new meaning—the original one.

[iverglas]

7. such funny ideas

So Elite people merit the protection of arms—the wealthy, the famous (or infamous), the political upper echelons, the judges and district attorneys, the A list movie stars. All of these people are “special” and deserve special permission to carry arms as they are in special danger.

Do you think so???

Goodness, I certainly don't!

What I do think is that you attempted to make an analogy that turned out to be ridiculous -- that people transporting their children are at "special risk" in the same way as people who transport diamonds -- as the question I actually asked demonstrated, and now you're just braying.


Paris Hilton, that paragon of human excellence, probably would merit “special” consideration.

Do you think so???

I tend to agree that she probably needs more protection from criminal acts than many people do. I very much doubt that if if I were walking down the street alone I would be in any danger of kidnapping, say. I suspect that if Paris Hilton were walking down the street alone she would be at some risk of kidnapping. Just fr instance.

I think it would be smart of Paris Hilton to hire a few people to walk with her down the street. It's her money that puts her at risk of kidnapping, so it's her money that should be used to reduce that risk, I'd say.

If you think that Paris Hilton should be allowed to carry a gun, that's up to you. If the people you elect to make those decisions think she should be allowed to carry a gun, that's up to the people who elect those people. I don't think she should be allowed to carry a gun (and that's quite apart from the fact that she's a known drunk and criminal), and neither do the people who make the rules where I'm at, or the people who elect them.

The problem does arise that if someone tries to Paris Hilton, it could well involve people carrying guns. Paris Hilton is quite unquestionably at very much higher risk of people with guns trying to kidnap her than I am or you are.

I guess Paris's best plan is to stay away from places where people with guns are likely to try to kidnap her.


The non-Elite, regardless of their degree of real-world danger, almost never seem to be in the “special” danger that merits the protection of arms.

Well, you folks seem to keep wanting to describe security guards paid an average sort of wage as "élite". I've never quite understood that. Where I'm at, people whose job involves transporting large amounts of cash and other valuables are regarded as being at special risk, and may be given permission to carry a firearm in the course of their employment. When they go back home to the rented apartment in the three-storey walkup where they live, the firearm stays behind.

So unless you really do want to describe blue-collar workers like that as "élite", well, I guess you're arguing with someone not present.

If you don't like your own public policy, do something about it. Don't be whining at me. I wouldn't like it either.



You said: It doesn’t even matter if your children have been threatened or harmed by a stalker. In New York City, for instance, special permission to bear arms is not generally granted to ordinary people because they or their families have been assaulted.

I said: What an excellent example of good public policy.

And now you say: Yes, Paris Hilton and her family merit protection because their wealth exposes them to danger.

Is there some sequitur here that I'm missing?

You didn't say anything about Paris Hilton. You said ordinary people couldn't get permission to carry firearms around because blah blah. I think that's excellent public policy. Where did Paris Hilton come into it?

Let the Chief of Police (a desk job), the governors, the mayors, the movie stars, the heiresses, the CEOs, the Justices and the presidential candidates enjoy the protection of court orders. Let the sane “common folk” with clean records and provable danger get round-the-clock protection until they can be trained and qualified to carry concealed.

Sound stupid to me, but whatever.

How about let's as a society take violence against women seriously and start doing something about it?

Nah ...

[TPaine7]

9. An introduction to risk assessment

So Elite people merit the protection of arms—the wealthy, the famous (or infamous), the political upper echelons, the judges and district attorneys, the A list movie stars. All of these people are “special” and deserve special permission to carry arms as they are in special danger.—TPaine7



Do you think so???

Goodness, I certainly don't!

What I do think is that you attempted to make an analogy that turned out to be ridiculous -- that people transporting their children are at "special risk" in the same way as people who transport diamonds -- as the question I actually asked demonstrated, and now you're just braying.—iverglas


An introduction to risk assessment

Let’s do a little exercise to see the risk incurred by carrying diamonds vs the loss of carrying a single child.

In risk assessment, risk is defined as the degree of possible loss multiplied by the probability of that loss occurring.

Risk = possible loss * probability of loss

Diamond Transporter

First let’s look at the diamond transporter. Let’s say that an individual transporter transports $1 Trillion of diamonds ($1,000,000,000,000.00) annually. Let’s further stipulate that if the transporter is unarmed, there is a 100% certainty that all of the diamonds will be lost.

Math:

possible loss = $1,000,000,000,000.00
probability = 1.00

Risk = $1,000,000,000,000 * 1 = $1,000,000,000,000.00

The owner of the diamonds will lose $1,000,000,000,000.00, a substantial loss.


Human Transporter

Now let’s look at a human transporter. Let’s say that each year in the US, 3 children are killed in circumstances under which an armed and trained civilian transporting them would save their lives. That would make the odds of losing the child’s life due to being unarmed very small. Let’s estimate it as one chance in 100 million.

What is the value of the child’s life? Since we are of equal value as far as government is concerned (see the Declaration of Independence) we can ask another question. What is the value you place on your life? Would you rather die than pay $1Trillion? How about $2Trillion? $3Trillion?

Personally, there is no sum of money that is more valuable than my life. I would always value my life more than any sum of money. You could always add more without changing the answer.

Mathematically, the best we can do to represent this is to say that I put an infinite value on my life.

Math:

possible loss = infinity
probability = 1/100,000,000 or .00000001

Now infinity is a funny thing. No matter what you divide it by, it remains unchanged.

A little example will demonstrate this.

There are an infinite number of positive integers. This means that a person counting the positive integers. . .

“1, 2, 3, . . . “ will never get to the end.

What if you divide the list by ten, counting only every 10th integer?

“10, 20, 30, . . .”

It’s easy to see what will happen. The person counting by 10 will reach 60 at the same time the person will reach 6. And both will have the same distance to go.

What if you divide infinity by a really big number, say 1 trillion?

“1 trillion, 2 trillion, 3 trillion. . .”

The answer should be obvious now. This counter will reach 6 trillion at the same time as the others reach 6 and 60. And all will have the same number of integers remaining. Infinity divided by any positive real number is still infinity.

Back to our example.

Risk = infinity * 1/100,000,000 or risk = infinity/100,000,000

Which boils down to

Risk = infinity.

Bottom Line

There is no comparison between the risk of transporting your children and the risk of transporting diamonds. To illustrate this, let a grain of sand represent the risk of losing diamonds. A risk of $1,000,000,000,000.

What could we choose to represent the risk of losing a child’s life? If scientists are correct and the universe is finite, there is no adequate representation. The material universe would not suffice!

If scientists are mistaken and the material universe is infinite, it’s just big enough to represent the value of a single human being.

[TPaine7]

6. You don't know what you think you do.

Now, if you could only go back and relive those events when your family was terrorized by a man with a firearm, and do whatever it is you think you could/should have done to put an end to it but couldn't/didn't do, maybe the rest of the world would be spared your acting out of these difficulties.

Rational and civil people see the man with the firearm as the problem. And don't see more of them as the solution. Really.

In none of the situations that I mentioned did the perpetrator have a gun. At least none of the women mentioned one. Men don't need guns to assault women, and guns can make a difference in the hands of a responsible woman. (And the incidents I briefly mentioned are not the reason I believe as I do. For one thing the timing is all wrong.)

Shooting a would-be rapist/assailant/torturer/murderer/armed robber in self-defense is a perfectly rational and civil thing to do. In fact, it is a public service. If society must lose someone, better it be the criminal thug than the responsible mother, father, brother, sister, lover, teacher, worker, or friend with the clean police record. Wouldn't you agree?

[iverglas]

8. you don't seem to read too well

I don't know what "situations" you're talking about here, but I know what situation I was talking about.


Shooting a would-be rapist/assailant/torturer/murderer/armed robber in self-defense is a perfectly rational and civil thing to do. In fact, it is a public service. If society must lose someone, better it be the criminal thug than the responsible mother, father, brother, sister, lover, teacher, worker, or friend with the clean police record. Wouldn't you agree?

I think that people who fantasize about such things should investigate doing some exploring of their childhood traumas and getting a grip.

"Self-defence" has a meaning. You might want to look into it.

[Name removed]

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