Freedom of religion is independent of civilian armament.
History shows that religious persecution is normal for humanity, and in most cases it's perpetrated by the government. Sometimes to consolidate power (with government tie-ins to the main religion), and sometimes to pander to the grimace of a majority.

Ironically, in this country, freedom of religion only exists due to armed conflict, albeit merely as a side effect of independence from a religiously homogeneous ruling power.



It's true that Catalonians would likely have been shot at if they were armed.
However, likewise, the Spanish government will never grant the Catalans democracy so long as the Catalans are not armed - simply because it doesn't have to.
(*Barring self suicidal/sacrificial behavior on part of the Catalans that eventually [after much suffering] embarrasses the government into compliance - often under risk that 3rd parties will intervene if things continue)

When the government manufactures consent, it will be first in line to claim that people have democratic freedom. When the government fails to manufacture consent, it will crack down with force.

At the end of the day, in government, might makes right. Laws are only words on paper, the government's arms are what make the laws matter.

Likewise, democracy is no more than an idea. The people's force of arms (or threat thereof) is what assert's the people's dominance over the government.



You can say the police/military are stronger and it would never matter, however, the size of an [armed] population is orders of magnitude larger than the size of an army. Factor in the fact that the people need to cooperate with the government in order to support and supply the government's military. No government can withstand armed resistance of the population at large. This is one of the main lessons from The Prince.

Civilian armament is a bulwark against potentially colossal ills (albeit ills that come once every few generations).

Look at NK. The people get TV, radio, cell, from SK. They can look across the river and see massive cities on the Chinese side. They know they have to play along with the charade that their government demands. At the end of the day, without guns, things won't change.

Look at what happened during the Arab Spring. All these unarmed nations turned to external armed groups to fight for them to change their governments. All it accomplished was them becoming serfs to the invited 3rd parties. This is another lesson from The Prince : always take power by your own means, never rely on auxiliaries, because your auxiliaries will become your new rulers.






Below is general pontification. No longer a reply.
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Civilian armament does come with periodic tragedies. Those tragedies suck. But they're also much less significant than the risks of disarmament.
(Eg. School shootings, 7-11 robberies, etc -versus- Tamils vs Sri Lankan government, Rohingya vs Burmese government. etc.)

Regarding rifles specifically (all varieties combined), there is no point in arguing magnitudes (Around 400 lives per year - albeit taken in newsworthy large chunks). 'Falling out of bed' kills more people, same is true for 'Slip and fall'. No one fears their bed or a wet floor.

Pistols could go away and not matter much.
They have minimal militia utility, and they represent almost the entirety of firearms used in violent crime. (Albeit used to take lives in a non newsworthy 1 at a time manner)

(In the U.S.) If tragedy was the only way to die (otherwise infinite lifespan), you would live on average 9000 years. Guns, car crashes, drownings, etc. ~All tragedies included. (http://service.prerender.io/http://polstats.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/life#!/life)






A computer learning example I was taught:

Boy walking with his mom&dad down a path.
Lion #1 jumps out, eats his dad.
(Data : Specifically lion #1 eats his father.)
The boy and mom keep walking
Lion #2 jumps out, eats his mother.
(Data : Specifically lion #2 eats his mother)
The boy keeps walking
He comes across Lion #3.

Question : Should he be worried?

If you are going to generalize [the first two] lions and people, then yes, he should be worried.

In reality, lions may be very unlikely to eat people (versus say, a gazelle). But if you generalized from the prior two events, you will think they are dangerous.

(The relevance to computer learning is that : Computers learn racism, too. If you include racial data along with other data in a learning algorithm, that algorithm can and will be able to make decisions based on race. Not because the software cares - but because it can analyze and correlate.)

(Note : This is also why arguing religion is likely futile. If a child is raised being told that everything is as it is because God did it, then that becomes their basis for reality. Telling them that their belief in god is wrong, is like telling the boy in the example that lions are statistically quite safe to people. It challenges what they've learned.)



I mentioned this example, because it illustrates learning and perception. And it segways into my following analogy.



Here's a weird analogy, but it goes like this :

(I'm sure SJW minded people will shit themselves over it, but whatever)

"Gun ownership in today's urban society" is like "Black people in 80's white bred society".

2/3 of the population today has no contact with firearms (mostly urban folk)
They only see them on movies used to shoot people, and on the news used to shoot people.
If you are part of that 2/3, you see guns as murder tools.
If you are part of the remaining 1/3, you see guns like shoes or telephones - absolutely mundane daily items that harm nobody.

In the 80's, if you were in a white bred community, your only understanding of black people would be from movies where they are gangsters and shoot people, and from the nightly news where you heard about some black person who shot people.
If you were part of an 80's white bred community, you saw black people as dangerous likely killers.
If you were part of an 80's black/mixed community, you saw black people as regular people living the same mundane lives as anyone else.

In either case, you can analytically know better. But your gut feelings come from your experience.



Basically, I know guns look bad to 2/3 of the population. That won't change. People's beliefs are what they are.
I also know that the likelihood of being in a shooting is essentially zero.
I also know that history repeats itself, and -just in case- I'd rather live in an armed society than an unarmed society. Even if I don't carry a gun.

-scheherazade

Reminds me of my first cat from way back when I was a little kid. Rather than a string, we used to play with a jump rope that one of the handles had broken off of. He would grab it and tug on it, growling and shaking it with his ears back like a dog. I'd drop my end after a minute and he'd march it back across the kitchen floor like a lion with a fresh gazelle.

All that time in what is to them essentially a 6x9 cell, they finally get let out, only to bite down on a bunch of polyester and nylon. The least they could do is drag a gazelle haunch down the runway for them!

He's like a gazelle... and in the same place in the food chain.

>> ^criticalthud:

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^criticalthud:
on average...uhhh. i'll take the average dog, horse, deer, cat, gazelle, or chicken to outdistance a human without too much effort.

All of those would lose to similarly conditioned humans in distance. Running on four legs is fast, but not very efficient. Humans require a lot less energy to run long distances.
Another big factor is the ability to sweat. Most ground animals would die of hyperthermia trying to keep up with a marathon runner.

i'm intrigued!
so, i'm wondering, is a distance race of no concern to evolution, or does it simply reflect that most predators are short range creatures?


There's probably a tradeoff between the mechanics of speed and those of efficient distance travel. For an animal that can win in a fight with its prey, speed and/or surprise would seem to be the most beneficial talent.

Humans weren't that great at taking down wild animals though, and from what I've read they were running animals literally to death (or inability to defend themselves) long before weapons came into widespread use.


Here's a quick TED Talk on the subject.

>> ^Psychologic:

>> ^criticalthud:
on average...uhhh. i'll take the average dog, horse, deer, cat, gazelle, or chicken to outdistance a human without too much effort.

All of those would lose to similarly conditioned humans in distance. Running on four legs is fast, but not very efficient. Humans require a lot less energy to run long distances.
Another big factor is the ability to sweat. Most ground animals would die of hyperthermia trying to keep up with a marathon runner.


i'm intrigued!

so, i'm wondering, is a distance race of no concern to evolution, or does it simply reflect that most predators are short range creatures?

>> ^criticalthud:
on average...uhhh. i'll take the average dog, horse, deer, cat, gazelle, or chicken to outdistance a human without too much effort.


All of those would lose to similarly conditioned humans in distance. Running on four legs is fast, but not very efficient. Humans require a lot less energy to run long distances.

Another big factor is the ability to sweat. Most ground animals would die of hyperthermia trying to keep up with a marathon runner.

>> ^criticalthud:

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^criticalthud:
most other species on the planet of similar proportion would destroy that guy. luckily, we're currently eliminating all the competition.
we're the best!

For 26 miles?
No.
(unless you're talking about a fight, then probably)

ahh...for 60 feet a hippopotamus would beat a human.
for longer distances we do alright trudging along and the creme' de la creme of humanity ain't bad. but on average...uhhh. i'll take the average dog, horse, deer, cat, gazelle, or chicken to outdistance a human without too much effort.


Yeah the average American would lose to anything faster than a plant in an endurance race

But well-trained humans are possibly the best endurance runners:
http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/may/tramps-like-us
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html

>> ^Psychologic:

>> ^criticalthud:
most other species on the planet of similar proportion would destroy that guy. luckily, we're currently eliminating all the competition.
we're the best!

For 26 miles?
No.
(unless you're talking about a fight, then probably)


ahh...for 60 feet a hippopotamus would beat a human.
for longer distances we do alright trudging along and the creme' de la creme of humanity ain't bad. but on average...uhhh. i'll take the average dog, horse, deer, cat, gazelle, or chicken to outdistance a human without too much effort.

"We've secretly replaced the lioness urine Kevin Richardson smothers himself in with Gazelle urine. Let's see if anyone notices the difference..."

This is what happens when we are too motherfucking compassionate as a species and let retarded babies survive. Animals in the wild know better. Retarded baby birds get kicked the fuck out of the nest. Mutated spiders get eaten or pushed out of the burrow. Slow, genetically deformed gazelles get left to die.

Animals know it's for the betterment of the species. We just think it's "cruel." How about we start acting on our instincts, huh?

Sorta like a gazelle being offended that the lions and hyenas are salivating after having walked thru their dens dressed like a steak.

What kind of "professional" reporter, who's looking to be taken as such, dresses like a causal friday pornstar anyway?

@Stormsinger^

That's twice you've used the word "obvious" in a supporting point of an argument you claim isn't an assumption. And you've also used "i don't see how" as another supporting point.

That alone is enough to show that what you're saying is an assumption. However i'll humour you and continue.

Humans observe wildlife, and we see "bad" things happening to "non-bad" animals, yet we don't interfere. Would you call this a benevolent act, or would you 'assume' once more that this is a malevolent act? It's a benevolent one because we have a policy of no interference because we don't always realise the full effects of our actions. In history we may have interefered and caused bad things to happen later down the line. But perhaps to a gazelle, we are malevolent, they can't understand otherwise. Their nature 'assumes' otherwise - you're much like the gazelle.

Perhaps in the past, "God" interfered with humans and it didn't work out. Perhaps, like the matrix, humans couldn't cope with a life that didn't have imperfections.

I suggest an image of "God" sat invisible watching every little innocent girl dying of horrible diseases, crying for her, yet knowing that to interfere would be to break a cardinal rule s/he made from the beginning of creation - FREE WILL, i shall not intere because i will then interfere with everything.

Perhaps "God" is sat above, watching cancer eat an innocent and kind man, but knowing that whilst the man did nothing wrong other than exist, neither did the cancer do anything wrong but to exist. Another reason why humans don't interfere in the animal kingdom. We consider that our own kind is above the animal kingdom, so we interfere if a human is in trouble. Yet who is to say that's how "God" sees it?

I'm not gonna list off the remaining 96 explanations.

Just for the record, i'm not religious. However if you're going to argue against religion, at least adhere to logic and afford them a luxury they don't afford us.

Looks like the cat knew what it was doing. Probably feral... eats snakes all the time.

Also looks like he got bit on the chest about 20-odd seconds it, when they swap sides the kitty appears to be bleeding, but it could just be dirt on its fur.

Anyways, impressive snake gittin' skills. My cats are totally hopeless pampered mostly indoor sissies. Occasionally they get some critter and play with it to death or until I take it away. I used to have one though that was a badass hunter. She hardly ate any cat food at all during the summer. Mostly mice and things, but smaller rabbits on occasion. A few times I found her sitting next to a rabbit carcass, blood all over her face, happily munching on its guts looking like a lion eating a gazelle. She always brought her prey to the same part of the yard for eating and it was routinely littered with the dismembered bits and pieces of various animals (a bird's wing here, a mouse's head there, and many other things I couldn't and didn't care to identify).

Are they trailing a car with a gazelle hanging out the window?