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| No worries. This actually improved Faldo's looks. |
2nd - LittleRedElf
3rd - Douge2
4th - Absea98
Bubble - Rjmech
And two weeks ago, a miracle occurred as Poker Stars cheated players and gave Faldo a run of cards like heck would not have it. A rare victory for Faldo over a slightly smaller field:
2nd - 95corolla
3rd - Derf-63
Bubble - Douge2
Congratulations to Jb1974x on his 3rd NPP victory!
Now for some truth:
It is impossible to remove the ability for human beings to inflict harm upon one another. Deprived of a rifle, a human intending harm will simply find other means: a knife, a pipe, a pressure cooker, a truck, acid, even sticks and stones, and, if necessary, fists and feet. Humans can be incredibly creative in their efforts to harm each other.
The only thing that gives predatory humans pause is the possibility of defense in the form of violent counterattack. Everywhere in the Animal Kingdom, violence occurs primarily on the weak and defenseless. Only a desperate predator will risk attack on a strong target that can defend itself. Humans are no different.
Most people supporting “gun control” measures, and now “knife control” measures in the UK, are living in childish denial of this basic reality of the human condition. Democrats are not in denial of anything, but seek to turn the population into defenseless subjects.
Not all violence is morally equal or even practically unacceptable.
The kind of violence that should be of concern to decent people is called AGGRESSION. Aggression is violence directed toward an innocent person who is minding their own business. Defensive violence is not a problem.
The problem decent people face is aggression, not violence. The problem is not “gun violence” or even “gun aggression”. The problem is aggressive violence, by whatever means. Democrat communists with a specific political goal of turning citizens into subjects deliberately confuse this point.
If we accept the obvious reality that a human being dedicated to harming others will find a way, then what can be done?
Since we cannot rid the world of aggression, we must accept radical responsibility for our own safety and the safety of other decent, innocent, people around us.
Technology provides decent people with the means to become stronger. With modest effort, even the physically smallest and weakest person can become quite strong, and a threat to deliver overwhelming defensive violence, making them very unattractive to human predators. This technology, of course, is the firearm. Study after study shows that when decent people are armed, or may be armed, then aggressive violence drops.
A population where a small but significant number of people MAY be armed, but it is unknown to an assailant whether a particular individual is armed, as is the case in jurisdictions with “concealed carry” laws, see the highest reduction in violent crime. These are established facts.
In the 1800’s, the Colt Single-Action Army Pistol was called “The Equalizer”, because equipped with this technology, an otherwise physically weaker or slower person was equal to their bigger, stronger, faster aggressor. Women, who on average are about half the strength of a man, should give this some special consideration.
This, then, is the practical solution for dealing with aggressive violence:
1. Accept that it is impossible to eliminate the means to inflict harm.
2. Accept that some people will seek to harm others.
3. Create in yourself and other decent people the ability to respond to predators with overwhelming counter violence.
History shows us that when people do not have the means to defend themselves, they will eventually suffer atrocities. Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Africa, China, Russia and Cuba have seen hundreds of millions slaughtered by their own government. Common denominator: Citizens in those countries were first unarmed by their government.
The moral argument is more cut and dried:
A human being is the absolute owner and sovereign over their body. As such, they have an absolute and inalienable right to defend themselves from aggression by others, by ANY means available or necessary, as long as those means do not harm other innocent people around them.
Any attempt to deprive a human being of the right to defend themselves is to deny that person ownership and sovereignty over their own body.
Depriving a human being of the right to keep the fruit of their labor is called “slavery”. Taking a person’s justly-acquired property by force is called “theft”. Both are aggression against the person’s self-ownership and self-determination.
A human being has the absolute right to voluntarily disarm themselves. They do not have the right to forcefully disarm others, interfere with their voluntary relationships with others, take their property, or engage in any other aggression against another person, either directly or by proxy.
Any government which restricts or removes the means for innocent people to defend themselves no longer recognizes those people as free moral agents. It regards them as subjects, and rejects their most fundamental rights as owners of their own bodies. Any such government is de facto a tyranny and illegitimate.
The absolute right to defend one’s self and property is indistinguishable from and synonymous with the existence of the individual as a free moral agent.
Disarmed, we are subjects. Armed, we are citizens. As decent citizens, we have the moral duty to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and other innocent people from those who would harm us.
Bill Campbell and Faldo
