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That's not a flaw in my argument. It's true whether you believe or not, whether you like it or not, and whether I argue eloquently or not. Who gave every individual the "right" to believe what he wants? God didn't. Of course I don't have the "right" to change their minds by force (not possible anyway), but that doesn't mean every illogical and godless belief is equally valid. Your supposed right to disbelieve is really the absence of anyone else's right to burn you at the stake for your disbelief. It's only "valid" between us. I assure you God will not recognize your claimed right. You can't escape the concept of forcing SOMEONE'S belief, since every system of rules will necessarily end up forcing someone to do or not do something he doesn't or does want to do. In our case, you appealed to the supposed science of seeing someone you claim is mentally unstable and calling for government force to prevent him from self-protection if he desires it. That's your opinion. It's lots of people's opinions. It's arbitrary and subjective. You can claim my view is, too, but even if it were, it would be manifestly LESS arbitrary and subjective than your view. Of course it's neither, which is why it's correct. You can deny God's existence and will and Law all you want, but you can't "logically disprove it." He's not logically provable or disprovable; HE IS. That's basically His name, actually. Because He is and because "the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof," He gets the only "say" that matters, regardless of our temporary disbelief/disobedience. I never said, "because I believe this, it must be the law." You, however, said almost exactly that. Everyone IS, ALWAYS, governed by "religious ideologies." Yours is essentially that man is god, and the measure of all things. Let's assume you want the thief jailed, or perhaps the murderer executed? Says who? Why? You've only got your opinion, without a higher Authority to whom to appeal. You'll possibly appeal to "society" or majority or "experts," but that's all the same thing. I know you think it's "just my opinion" that God's will is binding, but even in your worldview, that's NO LESS VALID than your view. (Please pardon my CAPS for emphasis; I assure you I'm not shouting! I'm just going way too fast in between other activities figure out the bold/italic stuff just now.)

I'm one, so now you're aware of me! Who's the judge? What's his standard? Is it The Standard? And of course there's a lot more to it. For instance, if someone is that much of a danger to everyone, he's probably already under someone's care as a child would be, and then that caretaker might bear some/most/all of the responsibility. And who would sell the maniac a gun? And if he was that good at hiding it, then ANYONE could be that maniac? I just know there are solutions that aren't "one-size-fits-all government force." This is why I don't particularly like using the phrase "right to own a firearm." I don't need a specific right to own a firearm since no one else has a right to prevent me from owning a firearm. The "right to own a cell phone" quickly became the "right to use government force to steal other people's money in order to give me a 'free' cell phone." Rights are really only valid concepts when discussed as a negative. We don't have to search for a positive right to breath, since we know that, negatively, no one else has a "right" to prevent us from breathing. (There are some duties, on the other hand, but that's its own, large, political/religious (inseparable concepts) topic.)

You're running down a long rabbit trail by trying to compare God's commands, which you turn into supposedly subjective, distorted, and conflicting mistaken beliefs, to your personal opinion and declaring yours superior "because science." At every step on your trail a person can go back and appeal to the standard, whereas you incorrectly paint it as an endless series of departures from a faulty beginning. It doesn't matter if no two agree. What matters is what it true. That just means one or both are wrong. In the days before global warming and the FDA food pyramid, when real science was done in the open, if two scientists disagreed, they didn't see who could shout louder; they went back to the data. "Because God told us so" is indeed perfectly valid, and FAR less arbitrary than your subjective "observations and measurements" of what you THINK a person MIGHT do in the future. In fact, God is the very definition of "non-arbitrary." It has correctly been said that "God is there and He is not silent." It is therefore incumbent upon His creation to conform as nearly as possible to His wishes. If there is confusion, we must study to overcome it as far as is possible in this fallen world. You're extremely concerned about the few mental patients you knew personally, but the streets are not running red with blood at their hands, even though firearms have been available here in numbers not seen in the history of the world. There is no epidemic of psych-ward escapee killing sprees. BUT EVEN IF THERE WERE, it does not automatically confer upon you or the government the authority to preemptively transgress the person, or property, or defensive capability, of anyone who has not done it "yet," just because you're pretty sure they will given the chance. Life = Risk I'll take the alleged risk of a hypothetical nutjob gunman or two over the clear and present danger of the organized and heavily armed state any day. All the concealed carrying of handguns in the world, with or without the gub'mint's permission, won't protect us from the dozens of Abrams, MRAP's, and Apaches rolling through and flying over the streets of Nashville or Knoxville, ahead of hundreds or thousands of troops in armor. And they can at a moment's notice. Think Boston or New Orleans, and try to see why I can't get scared of your mental patients. They're already running the asylum.

Yes they have. My folks live in Jersey, and I'd like to carry there. But I don't want the Leviathan to solve that problem with an iron fist. Today they dictate NJ has to accept packing TN residents, tomorrow that same principle is used to force TN to accept "married"... oh wait... Yeah, the horses already left the barn. But my point is that it's power they were never given, regardless of what we think of the individual uses of that power. We tend not to mind Federal overreach when it suits us, but if we value freedom, less government is always better (up to and including zero). "The government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." (But... I'll probably still carry in Jersey if it goes through.)

Interesting, I thought of Spock as well, and how that collectivist "needs of the many" schtick is the open door to tyranny. The second analogy is pretty good, but the first one pretty bad. Dogs don't have "rights" (I don't favor the term anyway but it IS easy) like humans, and are in fact themselves either owned by said humans, or able to be owned by the next human who comes along, who then may shoot it. If it is owned, and clearly poses a threat, and if the owner can't contain it, then of course you would be justified in shooting it once it was not contained. Regarding the mental pedophile; you still have to justify aggression. If you actually aggress against him without justification, then he merely thinks bad things, but you act on bad things, albeit different ones. If he says out loud that he desires to rape children, and is only waiting for the opportunity, and you believe him, I would hope you would tell everyone, and that at a minimum society would ostracize him to the point of self-banishment. Obviously I loathe the concept of so-called public schools, but if he were trying to be hired at a private school, who would hire him after being warned? And if he succeeded, who would leave their children? The school would go bankrupt overnight. Of course that's a new can of worms regarding how we raise and protect and educate our children, either now or in the "delusional utopian free society." You cannot guard against any and every danger, or "pre-crime," by attempting to preempt all the supposed criminals "Minority-Report-Style." It can't be done, but we'll all be made slaves in the trying of it. Your first comment last, regarding you being your only standard; in effect, and logically, you have no alternative, whether you said it explicitly or not. Would you change your mind if "51% of voters" said you're wrong? Of course not. I'm not suggesting you'd be a de facto dictator, given the chance, of course. I'm merely stating the obvious conclusion of your posts and of deism in general, which is that you've got no standard other than your own opinion if you reject the Ultimate Standard. You might make attempt to make "society in general," or the voting majority, or the government, or the Constitution, or some "great minds in an ivory tower," into the standard, but then you're just compounding the problem of the shifting and arbitrary nature of fallen man as lawgiver. Deism in theory becomes atheism in practice. If God does not reign, He is irrelevant, and we can have no absolute right and wrong, and therefore no absolute rules. "You shall not murder" sounds good to some, but not to others! Who's to say the crazy guy with the gun is wrong and you're right, without a Standard to which to compare him? Anyway, we can't agree on the methods if we don't agree on the principles, so we're liable to start seeing the same tree more than once in our doomed circular trek "out" of these dark woods. But I appreciate the dialogue!

This is not exactly a philosophical discussion per se. And no one is suggesting we live in any kind of ideal world, or that such a world would be easy to attain. But part of why we have the problems we do is that there are people who think they can arbitrarily strip others of certain things (or "rights"). Whether or not we've always had and always will have "the government" or "a government" is not the question. It is rather what is right or wrong, just or unjust. Your rejection of The Lawgiver leaves you as a law unto yourself. There is nothing any mortal can do about that, but it would be good if you restrict your lawgiving TO yourself. You want your ideas imposed upon other people, which would be all well me good if they were the right ideas and should be imposed, but you have no fixed standard of justice to which you can appeal. You can only advocate what seems to be good to you at the moment. You would declare this man safe and that one unsafe (and what if others disagree with your assessment?), and by that arbitrary declaration the second man would be stripped of his defense at the point of the bayonet, by naught but your say-so. Crime will always exist this side of judgment, and no one is beyond the potential for it. So once you've disarmed the unsafe man, you'll see the need to look for another. For the children, of course. Since it's all quite relative, as soon as the unsafe man is gone, the next least safe man will appear to be unsafe, and so it must go until ALL are disarmed but the state, by far the least "safe" entity to ever plague humanity. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As much as I like the idea of universal carry, what the bill does is make the FedGov even more into the omnipotent god of the states. The Feds need less power over the states, not more. I think it's also unconstitutional, but that's a long 14th Amendment debate right there. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What actually belongs to Caesar? What was the coin in question, and why did a Jew have one in his possession? Not that I'd entertain getting into a Bible study with someone who denies its validity, but for those so inclined, these are things to think about. Yes, Christians believe in laws. There are quite a few in the Christian Bible, but as you say, they won't interest you. Your disbelief in an absolute Lawgiver is what leads to your belief that you can arbitrarily declare that this person may defend himself, and that person may not. You called what I said about carrying a gun naive, because it won't prevent violence in every instance. No one thinks it will. Having a fleet of aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons doesn't either. You can't prevent everything. You can't find all the "mental defectives" and take their guns away. That's a "naive" notion if there ever was one. You talk of "likelihood" and of what "may" happen, and your fears of unknowable future possibilities make you want to use government violence to actually, really, now, strip others of their means of protection. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I label your view as "gun control," which it manifestly is, and so you label my view as "a ridiculous extreme," which is a all-but-undefinable adjective with a loaded noun. I don't mind; I just think it's funny. You claim certain people shouldn't have access to guns, and want the government to enforce your arbitrary view. With guns. All government edicts imply potential lethal violence. It's because we live in this imperfect world that we don't need or want centralized and organized government guns restricting private, individual guns. That's just solving a small problem with a big one. A REALLY big one. A private citizen didn't invent the atomic bomb, which is an utterly immoral offensive weapon, nor did a private citizen drop two of them on innocent men, women, and children. "If government is the answer, I don't think I care to hear the question." I didn't say the framers' ideas were all irrelevant; I said their views on voting are irrelevant to this topic, which is still my position. Regardless, the framers' ideas just give us food for thought; they do not establish absolute right and wrong. That establishment predates them by a significant period of time. If they said government shouldn't let citizens go armed, they would have just been wrong. It happens. They were wrong about more than a few things, you may be interested to know. Your "driving while intoxicated" analogy is another large topic, and easily handled without government violence as well. For one thing, if the government hadn't nationalized almost all roads, whoever owned them would set the rules and allow or deny access. And more importantly, driving blitzed wouldn't and shouldn't be a crime until you aggressed against person or property. Why should I care if you drive drunk and don't hurt anyone or anything? Anyway, as I said, that's another topic. We're so immersed in a sea of statism we can't conceive of air or dry land. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So... Gun Control. Gotcha. (Founding Fathers' ideas about rights and voting irrelevant.) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Exactly. I might elaborate and phrase it thusly: Our Creator gave us freedom under His Law to do anything not proscribed by Him, and did not give civil government, however organized, any authority to add proscriptions. In our feeble Constitution, the entirely unnecessary and counterproductive Bill of Rights merely enumerates a small handful of prominent ways in which our "Federal" government may not transgress the people. (But that's a mouthful so your way is probably better.) "rmiddle" said the Constitution didn't give us a right to drive as if that was supposed to mean something. Come to think of it, I don't see a right to eat ham sandwiches either. Quick! We need another amendment before the government totally outlaws them! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Everyone's a Statist. Apparently it's perfectly ok for the government to dictate what we're allowed to do before any crime against person or property has occurred, as long as it doesn't dictate "too much." And apparently now it's also perfectly ok for the government to steal my tax money and use it to "train" someone else in the government's abysmally hypocritical idea of safety and responsibility for free. Whatever it takes so long as the government keeps us safe, right? I guess those of us who understand freedom are a minuscule minority even on a gun forum. Regular permits and enhanced permits are the same thing: permits. Who did I give the authority to license me to do anything? Until I aggress against another, I have committed no immoral act and no crime whether I carry with a license or without one. If you're worried about the "dangerous" or "untrained" fellow with a gun, then carry one, too, and encourage all the other responsible people you know to do the same. Don't run to the FAR MORE DANGEROUS government and ask it to save you by exerting ever more power. All property is or should be private property in one way or another, and the owner of said property has the sole authority to dictate that a gun-carrier may not enter. Kroger can issue permits to carry in their stores if they want. It's their store. To ask the government to license carriers is to acquiesce to their illegitimate claim of ownership of the whole state and all property therein. If the government has to exist (which it doesn't), its only legitimate action on this matter is to issue a statement which says it has no business telling people what they may or may not carry and where. If Georgia doesn't recognize it, that's Georgia's business. If you can't carry there without an expensive TN permission slip, that sucks, but that's life. Please, no protests of "utopian delusions." We either believe in freedom or we don't. And we're discussing the "ought" not the "is." We're never going to shrink (and hopefully eventually abolish) the coercive government as it exists today if even the people who should understand and value freedom the most are calling for government action. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Do you believe we get our rights from the Constitution??? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk