[MissAnya]

Originally Posted by buffoon

Egad, I thought we'd just put that militia thing to rest. In advance preclusion of the argument often offered that we don't have one, what with the change in time since the Constitution (respectively the 2nd amendment) was scribed.

We made use of Militias at least up until the beginning of the twentieth century. They were instrumental in our wars vs the Mexicans, Native Americans, the Confederates, and Canada as a British Colony. The beginning of the end of our need for militias would probably date to 1908 under President Roosevelt and his "Big Stick" policy when he acted to increase the size of our standing army: http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=4727,2520510

We now make use of Militias in the form of mercenaries in regions which are extra-judicial and not on US soil. As the beginning of the twentieth century saw the concept of Militias become obsolete in the US under Roosevelt, the beginning of the twenty-first century saw a resurgence under President Bush. These are armed units that are not under the direct command of the President but rather a CEO. However, if a militia were to find roots within the US, we would likely round them up or, as we did in Texas, storm their facility and burn it to the ground with everyone inside.

Originally Posted by buffoon

There are theories about the rabid need to own guns being less about freedom but about lack of manhood. Of course they are merely that, so - having mentioned it - I won't pursue further

And, if true, that concern would hardly apply to the more fanatic female gun promoters, so they could be lacking something else.

Guns give men an artificial sense of power. Women perhaps may find power in their ability to persuade those men.

Originally Posted by 1956brother

just how do you intend to enforce gun ownership rules in a person's home?

The same way we enforce the law involving other crimes committed in the home like drug use, sodomy, physical and sexual abuse - what people can smoke, view on the Internet, raise their children, or do in the bedroom. When evidence of the crime comes to light, we send them to prison for a long time as a deterrent (or publicly post their not-so-endearing mug-shot on government funded web sites). Meanwhile, we permanently revoke their license to own a gun, acquire a license for any number of careers (law, accounting, real estate, etc), as well as their right to vote in elections for public office. This is currently how we deal with those who violate the law in general.

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by MissAnya

..............We now make use of Militias in the form of mercenaries in regions which are extra-judicial and not on US soil. As the beginning of the twentieth century saw the concept of Militias become obsolete in the US under Roosevelt, the beginning of the twenty-first century saw a resurgence under President Bush. These are armed units that are not under the direct command of the President but rather a CEO............

I beg to differ on the denomination. What is addressed here are mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, descendants of the erstwhile gunslingers for hire. That they were on US contract in Iraq and elsewhere doesn't compare to the historical militia concept as we know it. The business model isn't new as a look at Africa alone will show.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stirling

However, if a militia were to find roots within the US, we would likely round them up or, as we did in Texas, storm their facility and burn it to the ground with everyone inside.

If you look at Stirling's "Great Britain 75" venture in the above link, you'll see that a bunch of cultish nuts in Waco were and are the least of your worries. Whatever other name Blackwater are meanwhile abusing, there's a good argument for gun licensing.

Guns give men an artificial sense of power. Women perhaps may find power in their ability to persuade those men.

Where self esteem rests on possession of a bit of mechanical equipment, that's sad really. For both. Especially if, once lost, one has no back up like, for instance, force of personality.

[katonca]

Having lost a loved one to a violent crime, I bet dollars to euros he'd be alive today if he was part of the so called armed "militia" some folks are clamoring about. Before I start ranting on the need for more firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens in an effort to thwart the increasing number of thugs w/o a conscience, mindless bath salt laced flesh eating zombies, and oh yes my personal favorite, the fool who breaks into your house in the middle of the night to rob, pillage, and possibly kill your young child....tell me, what part of my (I wasn't going to rant) rant was I wrong on?

Let me say read the book More Guns / Less Crime or the other way around, I forget.

I'll save my other zingers for later

[1956brother]

guns are legal. do you want to enforce laws or control people in thier own homes ?

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by katonca

Having lost a loved one to a violent crime, I bet dollars to euros he'd be alive today if he was part of the so called armed "militia" some folks are clamoring about. Before I start ranting on the need for more firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens in an effort to thwart the increasing number of thugs w/o a conscience, mindless bath salt laced flesh eating zombies, and oh yes my personal favorite, the fool who breaks into your house in the middle of the night to rob, pillage, and possibly kill your young child....tell me, what part of my (I wasn't going to rant) rant was I wrong on?

Let me say read the book More Guns / Less Crime or the other way around, I forget.

I'll save my other zingers for later

Sounds like you're living in a combat zone.

[nittiley]

can't say it any better..

Tom Tomorrow:
Sigh
I wrote this cartoon after the Gabby Giffords shooting in January of 2011. It remains tragically relevant.

http://thismodernworld.com/wp-conten...res-copy-2.jpg

[pyritechips]

The way I see it is that if you boil the argument down to its bare essentials I see some people insisting that their "right" to have guns supersedes other peoples' right to live. And please don't give me that tired old litany that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people". Guns were designed to kill and they are an extension of peoples' will to kill.

There was a second shooting in two days in my neighbourhood. This time my friend's friend was shot in the chest by a disgruntled ex-husband. Yes, this is anecdotal But I weigh the life of my little boy's life against somebody's perceived "need" to add to our continent's civilian arsenal.

[nittiley]

"guns don't kill people.." is a mere excuse, in my opinion. that saying should be re-worded to, "guns make it easy & efficient to kill people."

that's awful about the shootings.. we used to always hear in the states that canada didn't have a fraction of the gun violence that we do & they had plenty of arms. even if that's still essentially true, those kind of senseless deaths are tragic, & efforts need to be made to prevent another one.

there has to be some kind of restrictions on weapons.. i suppose the complicated part is which weapons, how many of them, & who can apply to own them. even then, there doesn't seem a way to guarantee safety. if you make the assault guns (or any kind that spray tonnes of ammunition everywhere) illegal, does that mean a human with malicious intent can modify a regular gun, & use it essentially in the same way?

the worst part, really, is that all it takes it 1 gun in the wrong hands & 1 bullet.

edit: anti-gun control is unfortunately well funded (& currently supported) by the koch brothers:

[SIZE="2"...]the Kochs decided to distribute tens of millions of dollars to a diverse network of conservative organizations, including the National Rifle Association...
The N.R.A. launched a “Trigger the Vote” campaign to reach millions of gun owners who had not yet registered to vote. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2...op-craig-unger[/SIZE]

[buffoon]

Forgot who said it but if it's not guns but people that kill people, why do we give guns to people when we send them to war and not just send people?

Ah know, ah know,,,,,,,,,,,cuz the other side don't play by the rules.

[Littlefield]

Originally Posted by pyritechips

The way I see it is that if you boil the argument down to its bare essentials I see some people insisting that their "right" to have guns supersedes other peoples' right to live. And please don't give me that tired old litany that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people". Guns were designed to kill and they are an extension of peoples' will to kill.

There was a second shooting in two days in my neighbourhood. This time my friend's friend was shot in the chest by a disgruntled ex-husband. Yes, this is anecdotal But I weigh the life of my little boy's life against somebody's perceived "need" to add to our continent's civilian arsenal.

So if you are a gun owner that means you value life less then a non - gun owner ? I bet if an armed burglar broke into your house and you were able to save your son's life with one that the gun would be valued.

[pyritechips]

You have taken my statement out of context to serve your own purpose and backed it up with a hypothetical scenario. You first conclusion is absurd. My point was that if a person believed that having guns endangered lived by their mere existence and that the removal of guns would prevent deaths then it would be in the best interests of all for those guns to be removed. The problem I see is that too many people have the stubborn insistence that guns are not a problem and will come up with as many statistics and hypothetical scenarios to support their claims. My point is that a society with much less gun content is far safer than a society with a high gun content.

I mentioned a recent shooting here while at a chat site. One gun owner there actually believed it couldn't have happened because nobody was allowed to own guns in Canada. Well, beside the obvious ignorance of this person about Canada let me say that the majority of gun crimes here are committed by people possessing illegal guns. And while the legality of the gun is not the main issue here, I believe that a person that is willing to go out of the way to procure an illegal gun would also have an intent to use it in a violent manner. To offer an example, two groups of gangsters blazing away at each other in public, in broad daylight could be said to have very little regard for human life but they are the exception, not the norm. That poorly informed person in the chat room was asked why the need to carry a gun all the time, everywhere, and the answer was "Just in case". Well, I will go back to the movie theatre incident. There, as also in the scenario offered up by Littlefield, First of all a burglar will most likely hit the house when nobody is home. Secondly, If a person was home I would say that they have less than a 50% chance of acting calmly and quietly enough to retrieve a gun and surprise the burglar and take steady aim and squeeze off the decisive round. Most people would be plain scared and lack the basic training to deal with a life and death scenario. Also, there are many legally purchased guns that the burglar gets his hands on before the owner does.

I think to have a gun to counter another gun is a cure wherein removing the first gun is a prevention. Yes, I know it comes back to the original argument. Get rid of guns but there are illegal ones out there. If it was decided to dis-arm the population there would be a hue and cry unmatched in modern history. But how many people would surrender their guns if they honestly believed that doing so would save a life. It's a very simple formula: less guns mean less deaths. Period.

[valis]

Originally Posted by nittiley

"guns don't kill people.." is a mere excuse, in my opinion. that saying should be re-worded to, "guns make it easy & efficient to kill people."

Nope, not an excuse. A gun is a tool, just like a hammer or a saw. Hammers can kill quite easily as well; do we need to control those? Or knives; pretty easy that way too.

Point is, if someone wants to take out someone else, not a lot they are going to be able to do to stop it. There's a big story on ESPN right now about a 24 year old baseball player who was stabbed to death by his brother. His brother was broken in the head; I would imagine that most people who kill other people in anything but extreme self-preservation are just that; wrong in the head. They will take whatever it is they can find to get the task done.

I agree that there are WAY too many guns in the US, but honestly? There is not a single thing you can do about that. We make them, export them, sell them, and then you have the black market guns. Those probably are pretty close on the heels of legitimate gun purchases, quantity-wise.

[valis]

Originally Posted by pyritechips

The way I see it is that if you boil the argument down to its bare essentials I see some people insisting that their "right" to have guns supersedes other peoples' right to live. And please don't give me that tired old litany that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people". Guns were designed to kill and they are an extension of peoples' will to kill.

totally disagree with that. Totally. I see no correlation whatsoever between the right to own a gun and the right to life; none. I think you are comparing apples and nerf footballs there, truth told.

[buffoon]

Actually, this tiring method of backing up non-argument by anecdotes (usually second or third hand) and constructed statistics, would well serve me, for instance, in refusing to take a swim in the Med. unless provided with a chainmail suit, a whopper of harpoons and three canisters of shark repellant. Since there are sharks in these waters.

I have yet to see someone credibly stating on these forums that they have actually been burgled while at home, their child threatened and their wife raped, and that all of this could have been prevented, had they been armed.

Reversely, that they were armed, all of this was attempted and by gun use they prevented it from happening.

It reminds me of how many people on here claimed to have seen American Arabs dancing in the streets in delight after 9/11, but when challenged to provide a link at least to their local newspaper, refused on grounds of their privacy (home city disclosure) being compromised.

The same people often feeling more comfortable behind the steering wheel of a car than at the mercy of an airline pilot, never mind how statistics show the daftness of this perception.

Makes one wonder whether all this comes from watching too much TV or too much Hollywood crap.

The only person I recall not filling the forum with mindless 2nd or 3rd hand anecdotal rubbish and stupid statistical interpretations, actually HAD lost a relative to gun fire, but provided media links at the time. The perpetrator, true to statistical values, being neither one of the local gangstas nor the US Breivik version but someone known to the family.

And where this poster made a refreshing change alone by being credible and taking steps to provide that, he, far from being anti guns, also had the grace to express his doubts as to the necessity of ownership for any other reason than hunting. In the same breath finding ownership of handguns rather doubtful and the necessity for 15 round handgun mags and 100 round semi-automatic rifles downright ridiculous. Probable incompetence in usage included.

If someone can make a concisely formulated and pertinent case for ownership, go for it by all means. But working on the assumption of what you'd do at your next Batman premiere if you were armed, makes you play the ape that's shimmying up the flagpole. With people not only seeing what is more and more shown, but also smelling it.

And that's experience and not second hand either.

[valis]

I seem to recall that discussion.........