I believe in letting individuals provide their own safety and protection from thugs/governments that take away their possessions and property or harm them.

_________________
That's weak sauce!

The root problem in all 4 panels of the comic was violence. The result in all the panels was the same.

_________________
That's weak sauce!

Evan, your reply seriously made me laugh aloud. Well done. So did DTex's, for that matter.

Yeah, walked into that one.

Violence is a human nature problem. Guns aren't, and they are a public safety problem, ask that Hadiya girl. Its frustrating because a lot of gun deaths are preventable yet people shrug it off because they think registering their gun infringes their personal freedoms, or that violence is the real problem. Meanwhile people die that don't need to. It's stupid.

Human beings are aggressive by nature, most suppress it, many won't or can't. There will never be a completely safe human society. Ever.

_________________
GO HAWKS!!!

Visit my Seahawks blog at 17power.blogspot.com!

Follow me on Twitter at @17power

_________________
"Our Quarterback is a Bad Man!" - Michael Robinson

Oh yeah? You think so? I call bullshit. And so would people a lot more educated than you and I.

Just because you can't comprehend a safe society doesn't mean it's not possible or even improbable. At some point it will either be 100% safe or we'll be extinct.

_________________
RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You just lost this whole argument for yourself. Holy shit, you probably really believe that, don't you?

I understand your thinking.

"What I see is humans killing each other and have done so for their entire existence. Therefore, humans are innately aggressive."

However, you do tend to ignore the billions on earth who have never killed anyone and show little aggression to each other. And as humans continue to learn to work, live and benefit from each other there is absolutely no reason to think that violence can not be removed. Aggression is not burned into our DNA, it is simply a reaction to a situation when no other reaction seems applicable or possible.

I'll point you to a few sources (A simple Google search for "Are Humans Innately Aggressive" would do you well)

http://www.alfiekohn.org/miscellaneous/aggression.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bus ... aggressive

Aggression is learned.

_________________
RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Ugh, more vague studies I'm supposed to take as gospel? I think my "fairy tales" have more credibility.

_________________
GO HAWKS!!!

Visit my Seahawks blog at 17power.blogspot.com!

Follow me on Twitter at @17power

Your fairy tales don't have an ounce of credibility.

Innatism is based on the concept of universal truths. Universal truths are unlikely seeing as how different all of us react to every single situation.

For it to be universal it must be accepted and displayed universally. I would go as far to say as there is not a single thing that is universal. A child who grows up alone in the wilderness will have little concept of how it was bore, raised, language, skills or beliefs beyond it's surroundings.

A newborn child will suck a bottle/breast that will provide the nutrients it needs. It will call "mommy" to whoever acts like it's "mommy" and likewise with it's father. It will have no understanding or concept of right/wrong, religion, math, science. We are taught right and wrong. We are taught religion, math and science. We are taught who to love, who to hate. Eventually we will be able to create our own opinions. Our opinions will change and our universal truths will be altered.

_________________
RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Umm...

You really think that the disarmament of the US people is more important than the disarmament of the US government?

You seem to support the disarmament of the people before the governments of the world, while the statements you make seem to support the opposite. Do you really think that the general public of our nation should be disarmed while our country has been in almost perpetual war for over 20(or more) years?

You are right in saying that aggression isn't an innate trait in humans(imo), but it does seem to be an innate trait in powerful governments. Name one incredibly powerful government in history who wasn't incredibly aggressive.

The violence in our society doesn't seem to be a reflection of our love of guns, but in our love of our government. People seem to be very passionately for or against our leaders of the time, but they absolutely love AMERICA. No matter what America is doing or representing at the time, whether torturing people, drone striking whoever the hell they please, or spending more money on defense than every other country combined. Maybe the example of our government is the problem in our society. They give money to people who have plenty of it, commit atrocities against nations too weak to truly defend themselves, and erode the document that founded the entire country.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I will give up my right to own a firearm (with a 7 or more bullet clip...) when the governments of the world disarm themselves first.

I would rather have a law-abiding citizen with an AK-47 than an ATF officer who is only "following orders."

You have a serious inability to distinguish altruism from reality. Yes, human beings have the least amount of inherited/instinctual knowledge of any creature on the planet. We depend on post-birth learning more than anything else. That does not mean we don't have natural generic tendencies of any kind, though. Frankly, people will get away with whatever they think they can get away with, and there IS a lot of evidence for that. Even minor stuff like speeding on the freeway or not coming to a full stop at a stop sign. Those that don't break any laws that "matter" probably don't because they think it's not worth the potential risk of getting caught.

If you put people in situations where they can do bad things where they know there will be no consequences, the majority turn into assholes. The majority also lie or act stupid merely to go along with the group and its perceived direction. Here, read this article. Yes, it's on cracked.com; but it's legit and you can fact-check the sources independently yourself. http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5- ... oomed.html

So, don't try to pull this "Yeah, we've had 10,000 years of war and fighting, but it's only the minority and most people would never do that, and those that do it's because of bad learned behavior" garbage. Do you think Hitler was truly an evil person? No. If he was evil in the traditional sense of the word, he'd never have been able to get a big following in the first place. He was charismatic and truly believed in what he was doing, and a lot of people didn't realize how wrong it was until after a ton of bad shit happened. What most people don't know or realize also is that much of the western world (USA included) believed in eugenics until World War II.

Take away the consequences of people's actions and stick them around people who won't judge them negatively no matter what they do, and you get people like Joseph Mengele. Hell, you can even see it on the internet. Give people internet access and anonymity, and most of them act like gaping assholes. This "learned behavior" in a social setting is what PREVENTS most people from being total dickbags.

That's the second time I've seen you link that article to show how stupid and evil humankind truly is. All are things I learned in Psych 101 some years ago. They truly deserve merit, I'm not saying otherwise. But after learning that any person is capable of those behaviors you become more aware of your own actions and it makes it more preventable. Before you knew about those studies you were surely more likely to act just as many of the subjects did, now it is much less likely. It is possible to eradicate these evil behaviors just by teaching people on how to identify situations that cause them.

Well sure, because that's where we're headed already. I mean, society gets safer and safer every day. You almost never hear of a murderous rampage anymore. And when's the last time we heard about violence or cultural upheaval on the news? We can now leave our doors unlocked, park our cars anywhere with the windows rolled down, and never fear the threat of violence or invasion. I remember back to my childhood of the '70s and '80s, and how dangerous it was then. We barricaded our doors, set the alarms, and slept with a shotgun by the nightstand. You couldn't even walk down the street in some parts of town without getting mugged, robbed, or killed.

I think it's a population thing. Back when there was only a million or so people on the entire planet, every one of them was a crazy, bloodthirsty violent, intent on ending everyone else's happiness. Now that there are billions, the percentage of peace-loving pacifists is so much higher. Add a few billion more, and we'll be almost there, living in perfect harmony. All it takes is an open mind, an iPod, and a Kia Soul.

_________________
I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

This is true, but it only applies to the behaviors in question. There are a practically infinite number of other bad ways to behave, and you can't teach people lessons about all of them. People will still find ways to do bad shit. Unless you think 10,000 years of history is about to become irrelevant due to new changes in humanity?...

You know, 12evanf, the more I think about this, the more I think what you believe about it is a ludicrous fairy tale. Even if we taught everyone to avoid doing any and every possible bad thing, that doesn't change the basic fact that they have the urge to do bad shit if there are no negative consequences in the first place. It basically just socially shames them into not doing them. That doesn't address the root issue whatsoever. Do you really think it's possible to police the entire human race to that extent? I sure don't. Never going to happen. You'd have to put everyone on Prozium, the drug used in the great and underrated film Equilibrium; and even that is likely bound to fail.

Post of the century.

_________________
GO HAWKS!!!

Visit my Seahawks blog at 17power.blogspot.com!

Follow me on Twitter at @17power

The difference in our thinking is that your goal (or your impression of my goal) is to get a result of no human violence or no gun deaths. My view is that we should target the problems to get as low violence as possible. What you're talking about is a fairy tale, I agree with that.