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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Guns are not a part of the culture of my homeland, except perhaps for the occasional Bollywood movie in which the bad guy meets his demise staring down the wrong end of a barrel.
My childhood in India was steeped in ahimsa, the tenet of nonviolence toward all living things.
The Indians may have succeeded in ousting the British, but we won with Gandhian-style civil disobedience, not a revolutionary war.
I grew up not knowing a single gun owner, and even today India has one of the strictest gun laws on the planet. Few Indians buy and keep firearms at home, and gun violence is nowhere near the problem it is in the United States. An American is 12 times more likely than an Indian to be killed by a firearm, according to a recent study.
It's no wonder then that every time I visit India, my friends and family want to know more about America's "love affair" with guns.
I get the same questions when I visit my brother in Canada or on my business travels to other countries, where many people remain perplexed, maybe even downright mystified, by Americans' defense of gun rights.
I admit I do not fully understand it myself, despite having become an American citizen nearly a decade ago. So when I learn the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention here in Atlanta, right next to the CNN Center, I decide to go and find out more.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/world/indian-immigrant-nra-convention/index.html
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @05:06AM (2 children)
Without endorsing any course of action, let's analyze your claim.
How is this situation any different in principle than:
Assuming an unquestioned right to the defense of your own life (regardless of success), you are the victim in both effectively identical scenarios. As the victim, any deaths of your attackers are on the heads of the attackers.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday May 05 2017, @07:10AM (1 child)
> Local government bureaucrats revoke your driver's license
That's the sticking point. They don't have the authority to do that. In fact, they have to wiggle a lot to slide the red light camera tickets past the law. Like there's the right to be confronted by your accuser. There's also the problem of identifying the driver. They hit the owner for the fine, never mind who was actually driving. So in Texas, the ticket doesn't count as a moving violation, it is only a violation of a city ordinance. It does not go on your driving record and it is not cause for auto insurers to raise your rates or for you to lose your driver's license. If you refuse to pay, they can report it as an unpaid debt, that's all. They usually bluster, hinting that you will be in Big Trouble if you don't pay. They can't cut off your water either.
What happened in the city where I live was a petition against red light cameras was put on the ballot and won by 70%. The incumbent mayor supported the cameras and he lost to a challenger who opposed them. The private company who ran the cameras sued to try to keep the measure off the ballot. They lost their lawsuit. They then tried their stock propaganda about red light cameras making driving safer. Didn't work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @07:34AM
You are correct, but you're intentionally avoiding the foundational point.
Maybe not in Texas, maybe not in the present, and maybe not only with red light camera tickets, but government agents which do exceed their delegated authority and assault you are literally criminals, and if one of their victims successfully kills some criminal attackers, the victim is justified.
If people don't like the idea of criminals getting killed, then the age-old advice applies: stop acting criminally!