A single salient question; is there a human right to self defense?

I don't believe in human rights because I don't believe in objective morality. What I do believe is having principals that benefit the nation. The real question is, why is it good for our society to imprison people who defend themselves against criminals? Preventing a crime against yourself is a benefit to you, discourages crime, and jailing victims who defend themselves is harmful to them.

 

Sure we can

Yawn.

 

Of course there's fear or why the need for ccp? Don't you have effective police? Haven't you got a good justice system? Yet still you say you have to carry a firearm or live in fear. Doesn't make sense.

 

I'm not afraid of a house fire, but I have multiple fire extinguishers in my house and smoke alarms in every room.

No, we don't have effective police.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/239272.pdf

http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-murder-clearance-rates-misleading.html

No, we don't have a good justice system.

http://chicagoreporter.com/thousand...-being-dismissed-cook-county-criminal-courts/

No, lots of people don't carry firearms, and some do. Likely none of them live in fear.

Only some are prepared, though.[/QUOTE]

 

Oh BTW, only a BIGOT would pre-judge a group of citizens when they have no idea whatsoever of who they are. Since 1998 when I passed one of the strictest criminal background checks and received my handgun carry permit I have only drawn my handgun once and displayed it only once. The one time I displayed it, pulling my shirt up over it on my hip so they(3) could see it and know I was aware they were there, worked and they left. Since you have no idea what the situation was about and why I did that, you are not qualified to judge it. The time I drew my gun out of my holster was on a charging dog. Thankfully I didn't have to shoot it, it was on a long chain I didn't see which probably made it mean in the first place. Of course the dog didn't know any better because, well, it was a dog, unlike humans that make choices and know right from wrong. It would have bothered me if I had to kill the dog, I was more pissed at the owner who kept it chained to a tree most of it's life. Now if I had to kill a human that made the "CHOICE" to attack, harm and or kill me, I can live with that just fine.

 

Pray tell how is being prepared to defend yourself from harm a matter of living in fear? Do you live in a constant state of fear if your motor vehicle has a spare tired, if your home has a fire extinguisher, or if you have health insurance?

 

Your understanding is incorrect. It has never been proven that one does not have a legal or natural right to defend themselves against harm, being perpetrated against them by one who has no interest in living by the rules of society.

 

That's not Locke's reasoning. Locke's reasoning starts with God as in the post in which you introduced him to this thread. The road you're starting down now, by appealing to outcomes and that which "works", is that of consequentialism. It's a slippery slope by which any moral conclusion can be derived, such as that exterminating the Jews was the right thing for the Germans to do.

I'll just cut to the chase, 'cause I'm actually on your side on all these points except for the methods by which they are derived. We can never reason to a right, as an entitlement in a null state of affairs, because the is-ought gap is truly insurmountable. In order to get a moral obligation or prohibition, we have to start with a moral obligation or prohibition. Fortunately we have this in the fact that moral prohibitions, such as that it's wrong to attack people, are part of our first order experience. We can deduce one's right not to be attacked directly from our properly basic experience that it's wrong to attack them.

 

The actually demonstrate that such was the case. Show where there is evidence of individuals being prosecuted for having used deadly force to defend themselves against harm.

Demonstrate that such is factual. Show us the records of these supposed firearm censuses.

Again, demonstrate such. Present the numerous cases where someone has been brought to trial for defending themselves.

Even if you were indeed correct at one point in time in the history of the united states, that time has long since passed, and is no longer applicable. Laws pertaining to self defense are being strengthened, not weakened.

 

Present your sources to show that privately owned firearms were confiscated and then supplied to militia members to be used against the forces of the nation of Britain.

 

Sorry, the 2nd Treatise starts out talking about Adam, not God. Again, the conclusion Locke reaches has no dependence on there being a God.

Again, Locke said: "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions:"

Locke makes no attempt to make this dependent on there being a God.

Read Sec 4:
"4. To understand political power correctly and derive it from its proper source, we must consider what state all men are naturally in. In this state men are perfectly free to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and themselves, in any way they like, without asking anyone’s permission—subject only to limits set by the law of nature."

Morals are those traditions and beliefs that enable a society to survive. It is certainly possible for man to use reason to reach the conclusion that society doesn't survive while living under the Law of the Jungle.

 

Locke was arguing against a fellow Christian theist who was defending the divine right of kings to rule. His opponent, Filmer, held that the right to RULE was passed down from God, through Adam and his posterity, to living ROYALTY. Locke made mincemeat of the idea that Divine Right is what was passed down, but he never relinquished the idea that Earth and everything on it belongs to God. His contention was that what was given to us by God was Earth and all its bounty, not any right to rule. All of his reasoning to natural rights proceeds from two premises:

1) That Earth and all its bounty are the PROPERTY of God. (from whence he derives the idea of property RIGHTS(logically, not chronologically))
2) That Earth is given, by God, to ALL men EQUALLY. (from whence all of our modern understanding of individual rights are derived(if our rights to the external world are equal and our rights in our respective bodies are sacrosanct, then original appropriation follows, ie; once I homestead something, you would be violating my God-given rights by encroaching on it))

We do not need to give up the idea that everything comes from God. We just cannot use that idea to PROVE anything until God shows himself to us.

 

Do you have any sources from the time you're talking about?

 

The fact that you have to be prepared to defend yourself is a pretty good clue. If that's as routine for you as keeping a spare tyre or making sure you have a fire extinguisher at home and your health insurance is paid up then I feel for you, I really do. That's not much of a life, having to carry a weapon in order to defend yourself.

 

First, any one following my history of post would know I have a a gun rights bias; I don't hide it.

But, the reason I posted the question was due to having read the article below that was sent me by my cousin in Ireland...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1461346/Five-years-in-prison-for-acting-in-self-defence.html

While I am not surprised that some reached to Locke to support their position and even to Thomas Aquinas, I am surprised no one used Biblical references, opened a discussion on natural rights, Sumerian (Mesopotamian or Egyptian law).

I don't hold Lock or his contemporary, Hobes, as ultimate authorities on the topic despite the influence of their writings on Thomas Paine and the Founding Fathers in their reasoning with the Declaration of Indepenence and the Constitution. Neigther do I see need subscribe to 'God' for defining nalienable rights. Rather, as I will at some point argue, self defense, is a basic human strategy for survival among our ancestors which is responsible us to be able to have this discussion and which is also one element fundamental to the mission of any social cooperative group, that of a survival strategy of numbers in the common interest of self defense.

Incidentally, in Levathian, Hobes argues

If a man by the terrour of present death, be compelled to doe a fact against the Law, he is totally Excused; because no Law can oblige a man to abandon his own preservation. And supposing such a Law were obligatory; yet a man would reason thus, If I doe it not, I die presently; if I doe it, I die afterwards; therefore by doing it, there is time of life gained. (Leviathan, chap. 27 (1651))

Read more: Justification: Self-Defense - History, Theories, Modern Law, Reasonableness, Necessary Force, Deadly Force And The Duty To Retreat - JRank Articles http://law.jrank.org/pages/1478/Justification-Self-Defense.html#ixzz4aa1lvMd5

 

It would appear to me having a fire extinguisher or a spare tire is common sense preparation not something done out of fear; I would be willing to bet you have a spare tire in your car and know how to change a tire. I have had and still have a pretty rich life and I am prepared to accept the responsibility to defend it and those of others And, in my case, as a few others posting here, I am able to be here to post a response and have that life because I have successfully defended my life. You are free to rely on the statistical probability that you won't need a fire extinguisher, a flat tire, or have to defend yourself or yours; that's your choice to conduct your life as you see fit. I don't tread on others, but like a stonefish, I sting if tread upon.
They say there are no atheists in foxholes and some of those in those in the CCW classes I teach and at the dojo I train at are there to avoid to learn how to defend themselves so they have the opportunity for personal defense to prevent being victimized again.

 

While there may be a few, a very few posting here that would do nothing if attacked by a criminal intent on doing them harm, I there any one posting that would say they would not mount a defense if their family was in imminent danger?

 

As opposed to what exactly? What are you comparing it to? Going through life, believing that nothing can possibly happen to you, and that you do not need to consider the possibility of something going wrong? What exactly amounts to a life as far as you are concerned?

 

So what?

You aren't arguing the issue at hand.

You are using the argumentative fallacy of the Red Herring!

 

'When seconds count, the police are only minutes away'.... I live out in the country, we don't have a 'police' department, the county Sherriff covers us.

Let me ask this......

Do you lock the doors on your home?
Do you have a spare tire in your vehicle?
Do you have a box of Kleenex on your counter?
An extra bottle of milk in the 'fridge?

Not because you fear something might happen, but it doesn't cost you anything to be prepared.....

I've had a CCW for 25 years, and never once has it left the holster for anything other than target practice. Likely, most people who have a CCW could say the same.

 

I have a good job, a beautiful wife, and 3 healthy sons. So far, I have lived a pretty good life. I don't have to carry a gun.. I choose to carry a gun and my family loves me. Go get sheared.

 

"States also reserved the right to take or 'impress' guns, even if privately owned, if they were needed for defense and to direct that guns be kept in a central location for rapid accessibility."
http://theislamicmonthly.com/separating-truth-and-myth-in-the-american-gun-debate/

 

yes

Because I can't run very fast.

 

You said

as if you'd never read it before. The OP says "defend your answer". Your first answer suggested that Locke proved natural rights. I informed you that he did not, unless you want to take on the additional task of proving the existence of God. Then you changed your story, and tried to say that Locke had made some kind of consequentialist argument. When I informed you that he hadn't, that his starting point was God, you responded as if you thought that by "starting point", I meant the opening lines of the Second Treatise. Then I explained what the Two Treatises were really about, and you responded as if I had changed the subject.

This is childish. You'd be better off studying what I say carefully, understanding it, and responding with something more like: "Oh, I see. Thanks, Maximatic, for taking time out of your busy day to explain this to me!"

 

The source presented has been read quite thoroughly. But what it is devoid of, is anything resembling citations of historical facts. There is a claim that is made, but the claim is not verified in any manner. Simply because they claim such to be the case, does not make it so.

Beyond such the article is full of blatant factual errors that simply cannot be ignored, such as how privately owned firearms in colonial times only had a life expectancy of a few years. The number of antique firearms in existence, even ones dating back to the revolutionary war in the united states, are quite numerous.

There is also the claim about George Washington complaining about the lack of firearms owned by the people, as well as a lack of basic knowledge pertaining to their use, operation, and maintenance. Where are the historical citations that prove this was the case? Where are the records of the firearms census that was conducted, that supposedly showed firearms were scarce?

Beyond such, the Militia Act of Seventeen Ninety Two specified that every free, white male, able-bodied citizen, between the ages of eighteen and forty five, is required to provide himself with specified militia equipment, such as a musket or rifle, pistol, ammunition, powder, flints, bayonet, and various other pieces of related equipment. If firearms were so exceedingly rare, there would be no way for every eligible citizen to acquire firearms for the purpose of fulfilling their assigned duties of assembly. There is nothing in the Militia Act that specified privately owned firearms would be procured or otherwise confiscated if the public could not meet its burden of duty.

Even if the ownership of firearms was mandated by the act, as the article would suggest, such a mandate means nothing if smiths at the time could not produce them in sufficient quantities to meet the demands, legal or otherwise.

This is all on top of the fact that, despite the article claiming that states had the authority to take privately owned firearms, there is no citation of these laws having ever existed at one time or another. Lacking such citations, it is nothing more than an unfounded, unproven claim.