Short answer: Everyone.
Even former criminals and crazy people. Even children.
1. Criminals. If they are no longer in custody, that is society’s way to telling you that they are no longer a threat to good order. They still have a God-Given right to self preservation and their past criminal conduct may put them at even greater risk of needing to exercise that right mor often than the rest of us. The law should not deprive them of that right. And if they are in custody, then the state that is holding them must also take full responsibility for protecting them. Throwing them into the general population with other violent people is unconscionable. The idea of violent male-rape in prison is a joke among many people, but it is an admission that the state intentionally fails to do its duty to protect inmates and uses the violence of other inmates to make the prison experience even more harsh than any judge or jury or legislature would be permitted to intentionally enact.
2. Crazy people. If the person is sane enough to be wandering the streets, they are sane enough to have a gun for their personal defense. The only exception I would make is for people who again are either in custody at some residential facility or having been declared incompetent to manage their own affairs and thus have some other person appointed as their custodian.
3. Children. The smallest and most frail among us are the most vulnerable to harm and thus in need of access to weapons. Their God-Given right to self-preservation does not start at the age of 21 or some other state-determined arbitrary point in their lives. It starts when they poke their heads out of their mother’s womb. obviously, an infant is not able to defend itself, even with a fully loaded Assault rifle and basic load of ammo (210 rounds, in 30-round mags). Thus, their custodial parents exercise that right on their behalf until the parents think the child is capable of doing it for themselves. Particularly kids who have to leave their homes, walk to a public institution and be confined with other children who are likely criminals.
4. Aliens. People from other countries, legal and otherwise. They also have a God-Given right to self preservation. They should exercise it in their own countries. I would be happy to sell them all the guns they can carry in the duty-free store at the airport. They may not exercise that right here because armed foreigners are collectively called an “invasion”. Our army exists to prevent that. Thiugh, to be fair, they have been AWOL on that account.
Everyone has a right to self defense. To the extent that the state restricts the exercise of that, the state is your enemy and wants you to die.
If you take the position that Self defense is a God Given right for you, then you must logically support it for everyone else*. Once you cross that bridge, you realize that things like gun registration and background checks are nothing more than small steps to deprive you of your life, first by getting you to cooperate in depriving others of their ability to preserve their own lives.
Who’s side are you on?
* I suppose it is posible that you have a very selfish and overprotective personal God that wants you to have self-preservation but doesn’t want anyone else to have it. Or you could be a follower of a God who is capricious and only wants you to have as much self-preservation as you can earn for yourself using your inherited half-god genes from your father’s side from when he sedduced your mother while disguised as a bull, and a magical sword.
Had to think about #3, children, for a minute, but it makes sense. Allowing the government to disallow owning a gun at some age will eventually allow the government to disallow owning a gun at any age.
Also, they can use it as a wedge issue, perhaps raise the age after each “incident” until no one under 40 is allowed to have a gun. And since the youth vote with their meager experience (which at this point will not include guns nor the right to self defense apparently) they will just outlaw guns at that point.
At 17 a “child” is allowed to carry a fully automatic gun in the service of the US Army. And the Army will provide the gun and all the Ammo he needs. But he won’t be able to buy one for himself until 21.
Who knows best when to arm your kids? You or the government?
If dead people can vote then they should be permitted to have guns.
Forward!
AMEN.
How about if living 18 years olds can vote they should be able to have guns? Worrying about the millions of 18-21 years olds who are being deprived of their basic human rights to self preservation is much more important then a few thousand fraudulent votes in districts that weren’t even closely contested anyway.
Absolutely agree with you on this.
If a right comes from God, than it can not be taken away morally and it should not be denied.
If life is from God, and it is wrong to take life or let it perish, then it logically follows that defending life, including your own is what God wills.
I can’t find fault with any of this.
At 16 you can drive a car. Cars kill more people than guns. So do we get rid of cars or let 16 year olds have guns?
My son got a 22 for his 5th birthday. It’s the same gun I was given on my 5th birthday. It is locked up and he only gets to use it when he is with dad. No doubt that will still be the rule for several years. Every family should be able to make up its own mind, but there will always be a minium age for these things.
Gun grabbers always like to point to the success of gun control in Japan, Australia and the UK.
It depends on how you measure “success”. Japan only emerged from Feudalism 100 years ago and their society still reflects that. “Serfs” don’t own weapons under penalty of death. So using them as an example of anything is strange. UK and austratlia are only “successful” in the sense that they successfully accomplished a gun confiscation agenda, not that they reduced crime. Criminals in both places still have guns, though they don’t need them since knives are perfectly adequate to robb someone who is unarmed.
If they are no longer in custody, that is society’s way to telling you that they are no longer a threat to good order.
The high recidivism rate indicates “society’ is often WRONG about that judgment. Denying guns to proven criminals is a good way to hedge against this error. [the proper "hedge" would be a better estimation of the potential for that one criminal to be recidivist and if they are still a threat, KEEP THEM LOCKED UP. ]
their past criminal conduct may put them at even greater risk of needing to exercise that right mor often than the rest of us
They should have thought about that before they committed their crimes. Oh wait, they have a low future-time-orientation and low intelligence, or they wouldn’t be criminals. Hmmmm, why do we want these people to have guns again? [it might not have occured to you, but many of them already have guns whether you want them to or not. The issue is, do they have an inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the persuit of happiness like the rest of us or not? Do they have a God-Given right to self-preservation? If so, then who are you to withhold from them the legitimate means to that end? I don't want them to have guns. I want everyone to be disarmed except people who are just like me. I especially want the police disarmed. But I have to accept that criminals and police alike have a right to self-defense. ]
Anyway, all that weightlifting and brawling they did in the joint should allow them to defend themselves without the use of guns.
Throwing them into the general population with other violent people is unconscionable.
I can’t think of a better place for violent scum than the company of other violent scum. Contains the problem. [Except that not everyone in the general population is a violent offender. But the law doesn't make such distinctions. ]
If you take the position that Self defense is a God Given right for you, then you must logically support it for everyone else
Not at all. The right to self-defense logically requires that vicious predators (i.e. CRIMINALS) should be deprived of many rights, including their freedom, the ownership of guns, and in certain cases, their right to live at all. [ I would agree, while that person is in custody. But once they have been released, the whole intent of releasing them is a declaration that they have served their time and paid in full for their past crimes. If they are not "fit to be among the rest of us" then they should not have been released. Then every violent crime becomes a life sentence. ]
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