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Excellent TED Talk on the instrument of PEACE . Worth the few minutes to watch.

Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun

http://on.ted.com/fMxs

That was one of the most moving orations I have heard. He is one sharp guy and he has a gift. Is there any way we can get him over here working for the NRA?

TexasGal wrote:That was one of the most moving orations I have heard. He is one sharp guy and he has a gift. Is there any way we can get him over here working for the NRA?

No...The Netherlands has very restrictive gun ownership controls, no select fire or semi-auto rifles allowed. Bolt action sporters, side-by-side & Over-Under shot guns and some pistols. The pistols are heavily regulated. That's why he stresses that the use of force is held by a legitimate constitutional government. It's okay for soldiers but not the citizens.

The talk was more about the effectiveness of the gun in being an instrument of peace and not about politics or gun rights.

Andrew wrote:

TexasGal wrote:That was one of the most moving orations I have heard. He is one sharp guy and he has a gift. Is there any way we can get him over here working for the NRA?

No...The Netherlands has very restrictive gun ownership controls, no select fire or semi-auto rifles allowed. Bolt action sporters, side-by-side & Over-Under shot guns and some pistols. The pistols are heavily regulated. That's why he stresses that the use of force is held by a legitimate constitutional government. It's okay for soldiers but not the citizens.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. There were some comments he made that had me staring at the screen quizzically. It was a great speech, but I don't know about the message.

Andrew wrote:

TexasGal wrote:That was one of the most moving orations I have heard. He is one sharp guy and he has a gift. Is there any way we can get him over here working for the NRA?

No...The Netherlands has very restrictive gun ownership controls, no select fire or semi-auto rifles allowed. Bolt action sporters, side-by-side & Over-Under shot guns and some pistols. The pistols are heavily regulated. That's why he stresses that the use of force is held by a legitimate constitutional government. It's okay for soldiers but not the citizens.

And that attitude is very European, which is another of the symptoms of the cultural divide that separates us. We believe that (step 1) rights are God-given, and that (step 2) governments exist to secure these rights, and that (step 3) when government actively opposes those rights, it then becomes the obligation and duty of men to abolish it, and (step 4) replace it with one more responsive to their petitions and respective of their liberty.

Europeans believe that (step 1) rights are government-given. There are no steps 2, 3, or 4. In the Netherlands, and in most of Europe (perhaps Switzerland excepted), the right to keep and bear arms is not regarded as legitimate..........because government hasn't granted it.

The question becomes, for me anyway, do I believe that these are natural, God-given rights ANYwhere, whether or not a given national government agrees with that? For me, the answer is "Yes, I believe that these truths are self-evident, and that our human rights, ALL of them, exist for each and every human being who draws breath," whether or not their governments recognize these rights. And since it is "Yes," then those governments which do NOT recognize these rights—freedom of speech, assembly, religion, right to keep and bear arms, protections from unreasonable search and seizure, etc., etc.—are in fact illegitimate governments. And because they are themselves illegitimate, any state sanctioned violence they undertake—whether it is expressed inwardly against its own people, or whether it is expressed outwardly against some other state—is illegitimate. Furthermore, the degree of ANY government's legitimacy is directly tied to the degree to which it promotes and guarantees those rights, as opposed to crushing them.

And by that standard, OUR government is looking a bit tarnished these days. If we cannot recapture it and get it turned around, then it will become fully illegitimate some day, and it only becomes a matter of when.

mojo84 wrote:The talk was more about the effectiveness of the gun in being an instrument of peace and not about politics or gun rights.

In fact, while he was talking about the geopolitics of peace, he implies that he doesn't support the RKBA. The "state monopoly on violence" means military and law enforcement have access to arms, not private ownership. I don't think his message is valuable. Too bad he doesn't take his father's story to heart.