I see sides of Webmost and JDH's positions, each. Probably more common ground than it may seem on the surface.
About a year ago, the nut-job in Norway committed acts of atrocity similar to that which sparked this conversation, does anyone know what Norways gun laws are like? I heard someone on the news say something along the lines of "We're not in line with the other western nations on our gun laws" , So, I'm wondering if Norwegians have a similar sort of "2nd Amendment" type of guarantee? And, how did that affect the nut-job killer there?
Nut jobs are nut jobs... Take away the ar15's....they'll make bombs. I mean honestly....if this kid had no access to guns, you think he wouldn't have bombed someone? Blaming these types of crimes on guns is ignorant, crazy is crazy....
Nut jobs are nut jobs... Take away the ar15's....they'll make bombs. I mean honestly....if this kid had no access to guns, you think he wouldn't have bombed someone? Blaming these types of crimes on guns is ignorant, crazy is crazy....
Yep, that's the point I made in my first post in this thread.
"...In the long sweep of history, there has never once been a good government. ..."
This may be the single most hateful statement I have ever heard anyone say about the Government of the United States of America. The hate behind this statement should not be reviled, but rather pitied, because it is truly pitiful and singularly ugly.
I love the United States of America, and our great good government that has declared that common men and women shall be equal before the law, and that the authority of the elected shall derive from the consent of the governed. I say the government of the United States of America is a good government, and shall remain so as long as the people of the United States remain good, and true to the ideals that allow us to live in freedom and prosperity.
Really? Must love be blind? Must truth be beautiful?
"Democracy is a device that insures that we are governed no better than we deserve." G.B. Shaw
I am neither blind nor naive. However, I have grown tired of those who see "tyranny" everywhere in our own government, just as their predecessors saw communists behind every tree. Paranoia is rooted in fear, and I believe the words of President Roosevelt when he said that "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
If you are so convinced that the US Government is a tyrannical monster, I would suggest that you either leave, or find a constructive way to reform that which you find so oppressive.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. -Thomas Jefferson
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Ben Franklin
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. -Plato
I found a decent one by Lincoln but I'll leave it out since I feel he understood neither the constitution nor liberty.
“How should I prepare? Should I jump off the tallest building in the world? Should I lie on the lawn and let them run over me with lawnmowers? Or, should I go to Africa and let them trample me with raging elephants?” - The Ultimate Warrior
"Before you get up for that final snack, I want you to know, I've got your cat! Ha!" - ALF
If you are so convinced that the US Government is a tyrannical monster, I would suggest that you either leave, or find a constructive way to reform that which you find so oppressive.
Oh for heaven's sake. I say enough outrageous stuff all by myself that I don't need you to say I said outrageous stuff which I never said. Don't put words in my mouth. It's unsanitary and I got that part taken care of. Maybe you just needed to stretch my words to an illogical extreme because you need a way to get angry with me. That way you can dismiss the ugly truth as an absurdity.
Look what rights we have lost just in our lifetimes. Twenty years ago, who would have thought we'd live in a country where armed guards stand at the door of every courthouse, where honest citizens submit to unwarranted search just to about their daily business, where freedom of speech kowtows to political correctness, where you cannot so much as smoke a cigar in a bar, where our attorney general starts a week explaining that due process does not imply judicial process and that's why American citizens can be arrested without charges and held in military prison without trial incommunicado without term for no more than suspicion of ties to terrorism, and our president ends that week by promulgating an executive order arrogating to himself the power to declare martial law in time of peace for no more than the threat of an emergency. It's all going in one direction/ Tell me which direction you think that is.
The day will come as it always has. I don't say it is here. I say it is accelerating.
If you are so convinced that the US Government is a tyrannical monster, I would suggest that you either leave, or find a constructive way to reform that which you find so oppressive.
Oh for heaven's sake. I say enough outrageous stuff all by myself that I don't need you to say I said outrageous stuff which I never said. Don't put words in my mouth. It's unsanitary and I got that part taken care of. Maybe you just needed to stretch my words to an illogical extreme because you need a way to get angry with me. That way you can dismiss the ugly truth as an absurdity.
Look what rights we have lost just in our lifetimes. Twenty years ago, who would have thought we'd live in a country where armed guards stand at the door of every courthouse, where honest citizens submit to unwarranted search just to about their daily business, where freedom of speech kowtows to political correctness, where you cannot so much as smoke a cigar in a bar, where our attorney general starts a week explaining that due process does not imply judicial process and that's why American citizens can be arrested without charges and held in military prison without trial incommunicado without term for no more than suspicion of ties to terrorism, and our president ends that week by promulgating an executive order arrogating to himself the power to declare martial law in time of peace for no more than the threat of an emergency. It's all going in one direction/ Tell me which direction you think that is.
The day will come as it always has. I don't say it is here. I say it is accelerating.
I don't need to put words in your mouth. Everything you just said leads me to believe that you think the US Government is a tyrannical monster.
I want to jump back in for a sec, and try and put these two positions closer together, maybe. I don't believe that Webmost thinks the U.S. Gov't is a tyrannical monster, but that the possibility is inherent in even our (reasonably) good government.
Like JDH, I did kind of bristle at Webmost's remark there is "no good government" and JDH's quotes did illustrate some of the best & greatest of the American Democratic government doing what we wish it would always do. While that all remains true, it is still the same government, that (at the behest of their corporate masters) sent out National Guard troops to gun down miners and their families in Colorado in the early 20th century, for the crime of refusing to mine for salaries that wouldn't feed their families while the aforementioned corporate masters led lives of fantastic opulence. SO, the government is only as good as we make it, and, like the corporations, must always be kept in check.
Realistically, this cannot be done unless the people, the greater part of the working class, could at least theoretically defend themselves and overthrow the powerful who would oppress them. It's not that it is happening all the time, but that we must always be able to prevent it, at any time.
I want to jump back in for a sec, and try and put these two positions closer together, maybe. I don't believe that Webmost thinks the U.S. Gov't is a tyrannical monster, but that the possibility is inherent in even our (reasonably) good government.
Like JDH, I did kind of bristle at Webmost's remark there is "no good government" and JDH's quotes did illustrate some of the best & greatest of the American Democratic government doing what we wish it would always do. While that all remains true, it is still the same government, that (at the behest of their corporate masters) sent out National Guard troops to gun down miners and their families in Colorado in the early 20th century, for the crime of refusing to mine for salaries that wouldn't feed their families while the aforementioned corporate masters led lives of fantastic opulence. SO, the government is only as good as we make it, and, like the corporations, must always be kept in check.
Realistically, this cannot be done unless the people, the greater part of the working class, could at least theoretically defend themselves and overthrow the powerful who would oppress them. It's not that it is happening all the time, but that we must always be able to prevent it, at any time.
+1 "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure." Thomas Jefferson
I want to jump back in for a sec, and try and put these two positions closer together, maybe. I don't believe that Webmost thinks the U.S. Gov't is a tyrannical monster, but that the possibility is inherent in even our (reasonably) good government.
Like JDH, I did kind of bristle at Webmost's remark there is "no good government" and JDH's quotes did illustrate some of the best & greatest of the American Democratic government doing what we wish it would always do. While that all remains true, it is still the same government, that (at the behest of their corporate masters) sent out National Guard troops to gun down miners and their families in Colorado in the early 20th century, for the crime of refusing to mine for salaries that wouldn't feed their families while the aforementioned corporate masters led lives of fantastic opulence. SO, the government is only as good as we make it, and, like the corporations, must always be kept in check.
Realistically, this cannot be done unless the people, the greater part of the working class, could at least theoretically defend themselves and overthrow the powerful who would oppress them. It's not that it is happening all the time, but that we must always be able to prevent it, at any time.
+1 "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure." Thomas Jefferson
One of the hallmarks of American Democracy has been the bloodless transfer of power at the ballot box, which has negated Jefferson's prediction. I would add that anyone today who would recomend or prefer having a bloody revolution instead of a peaceful election should not be taken seriously.
I would also point out that the open gun battles that Amos refers to occured across the US at the begining of the 20th Century and were waged by workers against their employers, not the government. Those in government who sent troops against the workers belived in preserving the rights of property and capital at the expense of those who served capital, and thus provided the profits so lavishly enjoyed by so few.
While it is true that some Americans have, and will, always believe that the rights of capital and property should trump the rights of people, it must be remembered that the working conditions we all enjoy today in the US were paid for with the blood of workers who had had enough of horible working conditions, zero safety standards, child labor, long hours, and endless debt to the company store which often resulted in virtual slavery. These conditions were imposed by those with property and capital on those who were without, and who labored in peonage to provide the profits of their masters. It was through help FROM the government that Unions were allowed to exist in this country, and those Unions improved the lives of millions of American workers, and were a primary force in creating the most prosperous middle class the world has ever known.
The fact that there was no bloody revolution to overthrow the government in those days should be proof positive that in the US, peaceful voting has replaced the need for violent revolution.
JDH, nobody here has recommended revolt today. Knock it off. That does not mean that the need for violent revolution has been replaced forever. We are talking about the future. Take a breath, stop fuming, and think about tomorrow.
Look: I think the pace of change may have left you behind. Camelot came and went. It is astonishing how quickly things have picked up momentum in the wrong direction. Go back no farther than Reagan. Can you imagine, in Reagan's day, had someone said that the US Government keeps an island military prison full of political prisoners who it tortures for information? You'd say those were the rantings of a crackpot. Today, it's accepted reality. Can you imagine, in his day, a government so dominated by stock swindlers and banksters, the very cabinet stuffed with scores of them, so dominated that government prints money to cover multi billion dollar checks to ensure these swindlers' hundred million dollar bonuses when their ponzi schemes go belly up, while a quarter of working men are jobless? So dominated that the same banksters write the very regs ostensibly meant to regulate them? You'd say that wild eyed conspiracy theorist needs a checkup from the neckup. Can you imagine, in his day, that a new administration's first notable act would be to trump up drug charges in order to take advantage of a loophole drilled through posse comitatus so as to call in the tanks against a religious cult in a gun permit squabble gone wrong and blow the place up children and all, and then trump up some baby boinking allegations to make the pill go down? You'd say that idiot seriously needs to get a grip. Can you imagine, in his day, a trillion dollars spent on a new department of "homeland security" while state after state goes bankrupt? Frisking babies and grandmas at the airport? Computer banks collecting and sifting every email sent everywhere in the world? Government confiscating weapons guaranteed under the Constitution then distributing them to murderous Mexican drug lords? Governments telling what cooking oil we must use, what light bulbs we must buy, what cars GM is obliged to produce ... even subsidizing a luxo electric sports car made in Finland so expensive that no one this side of Justin Beiber can afford one, to the tune of a million dollars per unit sold? Liberalism has become regressive and repressive. Fascism is on the march. Truth is stranger than fiction. This is what we are watching. While the populace has become enamored of more more more gimme more gummint please. It's just amazing, innit? Hard to believe. Damned hard to believe. And that may be why you refuse to believe it.
No. Things are not yet so extreme today that we need to shoulder an AK and head to the woods this weekend. But they are headed there. There's no denying it. And that's what the right to bear arms is all about. Not duck hunters, target shooters, or proprieters of a 7-11 sick of being robbed at gunpoint. Not about today. About days ahead. About the eventual trend of every democracy history has known. That's why the founding fathers put that in there. Knowing full well that someone would get shot before that day came, but willing to pay the price.
When that day comes, you will bless the redneck who thought ahead, as well as those who paid the price.
JDH, nobody here has recommended revolt today. Knock it off. That does not mean that the need for violent revolution has been replaced forever. We are talking about the future. Take a breath, stop fuming, and think about tomorrow.
Look: I think the pace of change may have left you behind. Camelot came and went. It is astonishing how quickly things have picked up momentum in the wrong direction. Go back no farther than Reagan. Can you imagine, in Reagan's day, had someone said that the US Government keeps an island military prison full of political prisoners who it tortures for information? You'd say those were the rantings of a crackpot. Today, it's accepted reality. Can you imagine, in his day, a government so dominated by stock swindlers and banksters, the very cabinet stuffed with scores of them, so dominated that government prints money to cover multi billion dollar checks to ensure these swindlers' hundred million dollar bonuses when their ponzi schemes go belly up, while a quarter of working men are jobless? So dominated that the same banksters write the very regs ostensibly meant to regulate them? You'd say that wild eyed conspiracy theorist needs a checkup from the neckup. Can you imagine, in his day, that a new administration's first notable act would be to trump up drug charges in order to take advantage of a loophole drilled through posse comitatus so as to call in the tanks against a religious cult in a gun permit squabble gone wrong and blow the place up children and all, and then trump up some baby boinking allegations to make the pill go down? You'd say that idiot seriously needs to get a grip. Can you imagine, in his day, a trillion dollars spent on a new department of "homeland security" while state after state goes bankrupt? Frisking babies and grandmas at the airport? Computer banks collecting and sifting every email sent everywhere in the world? Government confiscating weapons guaranteed under the Constitution then distributing them to murderous Mexican drug lords? Governments telling what cooking oil we must use, what light bulbs we must buy, what cars GM is obliged to produce ... even subsidizing a luxo electric sports car made in Finland so expensive that no one this side of Justin Beiber can afford one, to the tune of a million dollars per unit sold? Liberalism has become regressive and repressive. Fascism is on the march. Truth is stranger than fiction. This is what we are watching. While the populace has become enamored of more more more gimme more gummint please. It's just amazing, innit? Hard to believe. Damned hard to believe. And that may be why you refuse to believe it.
No. Things are not yet so extreme today that we need to shoulder an AK and head to the woods this weekend. But they are headed there. There's no denying it. And that's what the right to bear arms is all about. Not duck hunters, target shooters, or proprieters of a 7-11 sick of being robbed at gunpoint. Not about today. About days ahead. About the eventual trend of every democracy history has known. That's why the founding fathers put that in there. Knowing full well that someone would get shot before that day came, but willing to pay the price.
When that day comes, you will bless the redneck who thought ahead, as well as those who paid the price.
... if they prevail.
#1, I'm not fuming, I'm not angry nor upset. You are reading something into my statements that isn't there. #2, Unless you wish to be wrong, don't assume to know what I believe or "refuse to believe". You don't know me well enough to make those assumptions. #3, I have no comment regarding the rest of your post. You are entitled to your own viewpoint, but I don't wish to comment on the views you've expressed.
However, when the Supreme Court recently ruled on the 2nd Amendment, Justice Scalia stated in the majority opinion that the use and sale of firearms in the US CAN be regulated. Unfortunately, the NRA does not agree with Mr. Scalia, and they are a very powerful force in American politics.
I only want a sane, civil National conversation about the sale and use of firearms. I do not want to live iin a Clockork Orange society of random gun violence, and I do not believe that an "armed society is a polite one". The death of Trayvon Martin, and hundreds of others disproves that axiom.
if you feel like trading your personal liberty for securities, by all means, do not arm yourself.
just let me keep my liberty.
The United States is a nation governed by the rule of law. In such a nation, being unarmed does not threaten personal liberty, whether it be yours or your neighbors. However, being armed does not secure personal liberty either, it only makes one dangerous, often to the safety of others.
if you feel like trading your personal liberty for securities, by all means, do not arm yourself.
just let me keep my liberty.
The United States is a nation governed by the rule of law. In such a nation, being unarmed does not threaten personal liberty, whether it be yours or your neighbors. However, being armed does not secure personal liberty either, it only makes one dangerous, often to the safety of others.
LOL...governed by the rule of law, that takes an hour to get to your house when broken in.... Great rule of law...very effective.
However, being armed does not secure personal liberty either, it only makes one dangerous, often to the safety of others.
it absolutely makes me more secure. only a fool would think otherwise. a very simple question will prove this:
would you place a sign in your yard or on your car that states: "I am 100% unarmed at all times" ?
but if you wanna talk statistics... Only thirteen percent of U.S. residential burglaries are attempted against occupied homes. The overall Canadian burglary rate is higher than the American one, and a Canadian burglary is four times more likely to take place when the victims are home. in the UK fifty-nine percent of attempted burglaries involved an occupied home.
american criminals are afraid of being shot. i am more secure in my home because i have a right to have a gun and protect what is mine.
the only person in danger from me and millions of other responsible gun owners is the person that is trying to violate my rights; rights that i have a right to protect.
and since others have posted quotes:
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. -Ben Franklin
I am not talking about having personal protection firearms in the home. I have no problem with that. (I have a Remington 870 18" 20 guage pump shotgun for home protection). I'm talking about the unregulated sale of assult weapons and ammunition. The Supreme Court has said that the sale of firearms can be regulated. It is time to have a civil conversation about how to do that.
I am not talking about having personal protection firearms in the home. I have no problem with that. (I have a Remington 870 18" 20 guage pump shotgun for home protection). I'm talking about the unregulated sale of assult weapons and ammunition. The Supreme Court has said that the sale of firearms can be regulated. It is time to have a civil conversation about how to do that.
oh... well then im making an argument that clearly has no place in this thread.
my bad
ill shut my pie hole right now because it seems that i have "dipped in the kool-aid when i didnt know the flavor"
I am not talking about having personal protection firearms in the home. I have no problem with that. (I have a Remington 870 18" 20 guage pump shotgun for home protection). I'm talking about the unregulated sale of assult weapons and ammunition. The Supreme Court has said that the sale of firearms can be regulated. It is time to have a civil conversation about how to do that.
In all honesty, I would have no problem with that discussion. While I know a ton of my Frieda love their AR's, I can't say I will ever own one for personal protection.
I am not talking about having personal protection firearms in the home. I have no problem with that. (I have a Remington 870 18" 20 guage pump shotgun for home protection). I'm talking about the unregulated sale of assult weapons and ammunition. The Supreme Court has said that the sale of firearms can be regulated. It is time to have a civil conversation about how to do that.
oh... well then im making an argument that clearly has no place in this thread.
my bad
ill shut my pie hole right now because it seems that i have "dipped in the kool-aid when i didnt know the flavor"
edit: PS: thats a sweet gun.
Here is a link to some stats for these categories. While it is true that Canada has a higher break and enter rate that has NOTHING to do with GUN CONTROL. The murder rate and violent crime rate is still higher in the US Kuzi.
All citizens of the UK are unarmed as it is illegal to own a gun there as a private citizen. I wonder why we don't hear about thousands of home invasions or violent robberies there? Guns don't kill people, people do. However guns do not shoot by themselves, they need people for that too. So if you can't remove the people from that scenario... there is only one alternative.
I do own a gun, used to own more. The conversation should be about responsible gun ownership and reasonable gun restrictions.
While it is true that Canada has a higher break and enter rate that has NOTHING to do with GUN CONTROL. The murder rate and violent crime rate is still higher in the US Kuzi.
that is all true to a degree. most people in the US that own a gun dont have it with them. they have it at home.maybe that is why they dont go into houses but rather attack on the streets.
All citizens of the UK are unarmed as it is illegal to own a gun there as a private citizen. I wonder why we don't hear about thousands of home invasions or violent robberies there?
but we do hear about things like this in other countries. some of that is in the link i provided.
of the top 5 largest mass shootings in the world carried out by individuals one of them happened in the us and TWO in the UK.
-July 22, 2011: Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik kills 77 in Norway in twin attacks: a bombing in downtown Oslo and a shooting massacre at a youth camp outside the capital. norway has stricter gun control than the US
-- April 16, 2007: Seung-*** Cho, 23, kills 32 people and himself on Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va.
- April 28, 1996: Martin Bryant, 29, bursts into cafeteria in seaside resort of Port Arthur in Tasmania, Australia, shooting 20 people to death. Driving away, he kills 15 others. again, way more restrictive than the US
-March 13, 1996: Thomas Hamilton, 43, kills 16 kindergarten children and their teacher in elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland also more restrictive than the US
- Aug. 19, 1987: Michael Ryan, 27, kills 16 people in small market town of Hungerford, England, and then shoots himself dead after being cornered by police. more restrictive than the US
laker1963:
Guns don't kill people, people do. However guns do not shoot by themselves, they need people for that too. So if you can't remove the people from that scenario... there is only one alternative.
I do own a gun, used to own more. The conversation should be about responsible gun ownership and reasonable gun restrictions.
i believe that the us has a higher crime rate than many other countries because of cultural differences, not because of guns. Guns are easy to point to. causation and correlation are not the same.
i bet more people (by percentage of course) are killed in the US using a knife than any other country as well. im sure more people in the US are killed by cars (by percentage again) than most other countries also. does this mean that fast cars should be restricted more?
i do agree that the conversation should be about responsible gun ownership. to me this means guns in responsible hands and restricting who gets them, not restricting what guns can be sold. does that make sense?
just to play devil's advocate: bringing home defense back into it... what if it is the government illegally entering your house (a renegade cop, or a political hostage taking situation)? if the government controls what guns you own they win 100% of the time because they will ALWAYS have better guns. i know that those are so few and far between that its almost a moot point but its interesting to think about.
Never ceases to amaze me how hard people will fight for their guns. Guns, religion, abortion, and a few others close like race and death penalty have a way of riling up people beyond belief. This shooting proves that. Its a great talking point for politicians to distract us from real, non-emotional, non religious based issues that impact society but are boring------like the disparity of wealth and abuse of power.
Never ceases to amaze me how hard people will fight for their guns. Guns, religion, abortion, and a few others close like race and death penalty have a way of riling up people beyond belief. This shooting proves that. Its a great talking point for politicians to distract us from real, non-emotional, non religious based issues that impact society but are boring------like the disparity of wealth and abuse of power.
it is easier to abuse power if the people are not armed to fight back.
Never ceases to amaze me how hard people will fight for their guns. Guns, religion, abortion, and a few others close like race and death penalty have a way of riling up people beyond belief. This shooting proves that. Its a great talking point for politicians to distract us from real, non-emotional, non religious based issues that impact society but are boring------like the disparity of wealth and abuse of power.
it is easier to abuse power if the people are not armed to fight back.
We could never rebel against our country or military, which is a big bit of the abuse I am referring to because he would be squashed like Ruby Ridge or other places and made to look like nuts. You go with the status quo here, or you are branded.
Never ceases to amaze me how hard people will fight for their guns. Guns, religion, abortion, and a few others close like race and death penalty have a way of riling up people beyond belief. This shooting proves that. Its a great talking point for politicians to distract us from real, non-emotional, non religious based issues that impact society but are boring------like the disparity of wealth and abuse of power.
it is easier to abuse power if the people are not armed to fight back.
We could never rebel against our country or military, which is a big bit of the abuse I am referring to because he would be squashed like Ruby Ridge or other places and made to look like nuts. You go with the status quo here, or you are branded.
Never ceases to amaze me how hard people will fight for their guns. Guns, religion, abortion, and a few others close like race and death penalty have a way of riling up people beyond belief. This shooting proves that. Its a great talking point for politicians to distract us from real, non-emotional, non religious based issues that impact society but are boring------like the disparity of wealth and abuse of power.
it is easier to abuse power if the people are not armed to fight back.
We could never rebel against our country or military, which is a big bit of the abuse I am referring to because he would be squashed like Ruby Ridge or other places and made to look like nuts. You go with the status quo here, or you are branded.
i wonder what percentage of the military would Actually attack US citizens. i feel that i am veering off topic. again... interesting to think about.
Never ceases to amaze me how hard people will fight for their guns. Guns, religion, abortion, and a few others close like race and death penalty have a way of riling up people beyond belief. This shooting proves that. Its a great talking point for politicians to distract us from real, non-emotional, non religious based issues that impact society but are boring------like the disparity of wealth and abuse of power.
it is easier to abuse power if the people are not armed to fight back.
We could never rebel against our country or military, which is a big bit of the abuse I am referring to because he would be squashed like Ruby Ridge or other places and made to look like nuts. You go with the status quo here, or you are branded.
i wonder what percentage of the military would Actually attack US citizens. i feel that i am veering off topic. again... interesting to think about.
Washington used Federal troops to squash the whiskey rebellion in Pennsylvania, Lincoln used Federal troops to preserve the United States against Confederate Forces, Eisenhower used the 101 Airborne to enforce Federal Law over State Law in Little Rock, AK, and National Guard troops killed students at Kent State in 1970. Personally, I think the discipline is so strong in our troops, there would be very little problem if they were required to put down another rebellion against the United States of America. After all, they have all taken an oath to preserve and defend the US against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Very interesting question Kuz....but I think I agree wiuth JDH. And to add to what he said, if the "powers that be" said it was a rebellion---I think the military would follow even if they didnt personally agree. So could there ever really be a "rebellion" for a just cause....between the military might and spin machine by the "Masters of War"....I doubt it.
Comments
I am neither blind nor naive. However, I have grown tired of those who see "tyranny" everywhere in our own government, just as their predecessors saw communists behind every tree. Paranoia is rooted in fear, and I believe the words of President Roosevelt when he said that "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
If you are so convinced that the US Government is a tyrannical monster, I would suggest that you either leave, or find a constructive way to reform that which you find so oppressive.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Ben Franklin
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty. -Plato
I found a decent one by Lincoln but I'll leave it out since I feel he understood neither the constitution nor liberty.
"Before you get up for that final snack, I want you to know, I've got your cat! Ha!" - ALF
Do I win the quote contest?
Look what rights we have lost just in our lifetimes. Twenty years ago, who would have thought we'd live in a country where armed guards stand at the door of every courthouse, where honest citizens submit to unwarranted search just to about their daily business, where freedom of speech kowtows to political correctness, where you cannot so much as smoke a cigar in a bar, where our attorney general starts a week explaining that due process does not imply judicial process and that's why American citizens can be arrested without charges and held in military prison without trial incommunicado without term for no more than suspicion of ties to terrorism, and our president ends that week by promulgating an executive order arrogating to himself the power to declare martial law in time of peace for no more than the threat of an emergency. It's all going in one direction/ Tell me which direction you think that is.
The day will come as it always has. I don't say it is here. I say it is accelerating.
Like JDH, I did kind of bristle at Webmost's remark there is "no good government" and JDH's quotes did illustrate some of the best & greatest of the American Democratic government doing what we wish it would always do. While that all remains true, it is still the same government, that (at the behest of their corporate masters) sent out National Guard troops to gun down miners and their families in Colorado in the early 20th century, for the crime of refusing to mine for salaries that wouldn't feed their families while the aforementioned corporate masters led lives of fantastic opulence.
SO, the government is only as good as we make it, and, like the corporations, must always be kept in check.
Realistically, this cannot be done unless the people, the greater part of the working class, could at least theoretically defend themselves and overthrow the powerful who would oppress them.
It's not that it is happening all the time, but that we must always be able to prevent it, at any time.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Thomas Jefferson
I would also point out that the open gun battles that Amos refers to occured across the US at the begining of the 20th Century and were waged by workers against their employers, not the government. Those in government who sent troops against the workers belived in preserving the rights of property and capital at the expense of those who served capital, and thus provided the profits so lavishly enjoyed by so few.
While it is true that some Americans have, and will, always believe that the rights of capital and property should trump the rights of people, it must be remembered that the working conditions we all enjoy today in the US were paid for with the blood of workers who had had enough of horible working conditions, zero safety standards, child labor, long hours, and endless debt to the company store which often resulted in virtual slavery. These conditions were imposed by those with property and capital on those who were without, and who labored in peonage to provide the profits of their masters. It was through help FROM the government that Unions were allowed to exist in this country, and those Unions improved the lives of millions of American workers, and were a primary force in creating the most prosperous middle class the world has ever known.
The fact that there was no bloody revolution to overthrow the government in those days should be proof positive that in the US, peaceful voting has replaced the need for violent revolution.
Look: I think the pace of change may have left you behind. Camelot came and went. It is astonishing how quickly things have picked up momentum in the wrong direction. Go back no farther than Reagan. Can you imagine, in Reagan's day, had someone said that the US Government keeps an island military prison full of political prisoners who it tortures for information? You'd say those were the rantings of a crackpot. Today, it's accepted reality. Can you imagine, in his day, a government so dominated by stock swindlers and banksters, the very cabinet stuffed with scores of them, so dominated that government prints money to cover multi billion dollar checks to ensure these swindlers' hundred million dollar bonuses when their ponzi schemes go belly up, while a quarter of working men are jobless? So dominated that the same banksters write the very regs ostensibly meant to regulate them? You'd say that wild eyed conspiracy theorist needs a checkup from the neckup. Can you imagine, in his day, that a new administration's first notable act would be to trump up drug charges in order to take advantage of a loophole drilled through posse comitatus so as to call in the tanks against a religious cult in a gun permit squabble gone wrong and blow the place up children and all, and then trump up some baby boinking allegations to make the pill go down? You'd say that idiot seriously needs to get a grip. Can you imagine, in his day, a trillion dollars spent on a new department of "homeland security" while state after state goes bankrupt? Frisking babies and grandmas at the airport? Computer banks collecting and sifting every email sent everywhere in the world? Government confiscating weapons guaranteed under the Constitution then distributing them to murderous Mexican drug lords? Governments telling what cooking oil we must use, what light bulbs we must buy, what cars GM is obliged to produce ... even subsidizing a luxo electric sports car made in Finland so expensive that no one this side of Justin Beiber can afford one, to the tune of a million dollars per unit sold? Liberalism has become regressive and repressive. Fascism is on the march. Truth is stranger than fiction. This is what we are watching. While the populace has become enamored of more more more gimme more gummint please. It's just amazing, innit? Hard to believe. Damned hard to believe. And that may be why you refuse to believe it.
No. Things are not yet so extreme today that we need to shoulder an AK and head to the woods this weekend. But they are headed there. There's no denying it. And that's what the right to bear arms is all about. Not duck hunters, target shooters, or proprieters of a 7-11 sick of being robbed at gunpoint. Not about today. About days ahead. About the eventual trend of every democracy history has known. That's why the founding fathers put that in there. Knowing full well that someone would get shot before that day came, but willing to pay the price.
When that day comes, you will bless the redneck who thought ahead, as well as those who paid the price.
... if they prevail.
However, when the Supreme Court recently ruled on the 2nd Amendment, Justice Scalia stated in the majority opinion that the use and sale of firearms in the US CAN be regulated. Unfortunately, the NRA does not agree with Mr. Scalia, and they are a very powerful force in American politics.
I only want a sane, civil National conversation about the sale and use of firearms. I do not want to live iin a Clockork Orange society of random gun violence, and I do not believe that an "armed society is a polite one". The death of Trayvon Martin, and hundreds of others disproves that axiom.
just let me keep my liberty.
Buy unregistered
only a fool would think otherwise. a very simple question will prove this:
would you place a sign in your yard or on your car that states: "I am 100% unarmed at all times" ?
but if you wanna talk statistics...
Only thirteen percent of U.S. residential burglaries are attempted against occupied homes. The overall Canadian burglary rate is higher than the American one, and a Canadian burglary is four times more likely to take place when the victims are home. in the UK fifty-nine percent of attempted burglaries involved an occupied home.
american criminals are afraid of being shot.
i am more secure in my home because i have a right to have a gun and protect what is mine.
the only person in danger from me and millions of other responsible gun owners is the person that is trying to violate my rights; rights that i have a right to protect.
and since others have posted quotes:
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
-Ben Franklin
im making an argument that clearly has no place in this thread.
my bad
ill shut my pie hole right now because it seems that i have "dipped in the kool-aid when i didnt know the flavor"
edit:
PS: thats a sweet gun.
All citizens of the UK are unarmed as it is illegal to own a gun there as a private citizen. I wonder why we don't hear about thousands of home invasions or violent robberies there? Guns don't kill people, people do. However guns do not shoot by themselves, they need people for that too. So if you can't remove the people from that scenario... there is only one alternative.
I do own a gun, used to own more. The conversation should be about responsible gun ownership and reasonable gun restrictions.
http://web4.uwindsor.ca/users/m/mfc/41-240.nsf/0/10ff8b04ff3a317885256d88005720f6/$FILE/ATT8BNDV/0110185-002-XIE.pdf
i too have links. CLICK but we do hear about things like this in other countries. some of that is in the link i provided.
of the top 5 largest mass shootings in the world carried out by individuals one of them happened in the us and TWO in the UK.
-July 22, 2011: Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik kills 77 in Norway in twin attacks: a bombing in downtown Oslo and a shooting massacre at a youth camp outside the capital.
norway has stricter gun control than the US
-- April 16, 2007: Seung-*** Cho, 23, kills 32 people and himself on Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Va.
- April 28, 1996: Martin Bryant, 29, bursts into cafeteria in seaside resort of Port Arthur in Tasmania, Australia, shooting 20 people to death. Driving away, he kills 15 others.
again, way more restrictive than the US
-March 13, 1996: Thomas Hamilton, 43, kills 16 kindergarten children and their teacher in elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland
also more restrictive than the US
- Aug. 19, 1987: Michael Ryan, 27, kills 16 people in small market town of Hungerford, England, and then shoots himself dead after being cornered by police.
more restrictive than the US
i believe that the us has a higher crime rate than many other countries because of cultural differences, not because of guns. Guns are easy to point to. causation and correlation are not the same.
i bet more people (by percentage of course) are killed in the US using a knife than any other country as well.
im sure more people in the US are killed by cars (by percentage again) than most other countries also. does this mean that fast cars should be restricted more?
i do agree that the conversation should be about responsible gun ownership. to me this means guns in responsible hands and restricting who gets them, not restricting what guns can be sold. does that make sense?
just to play devil's advocate:
bringing home defense back into it...
what if it is the government illegally entering your house (a renegade cop, or a political hostage taking situation)? if the government controls what guns you own they win 100% of the time because they will ALWAYS have better guns.
i know that those are so few and far between that its almost a moot point but its interesting to think about.
they took an oath to uphold the constitution.
its really hard to say.
i guess it may depend on the view of the troops. if they feel that the government is the enemy, they may not follow orders.
by "its really hard to say" i mean: "damn impossible to speculate"
again, interesting to think about.