If you actually believe that a civil war scenario is possible, then we may be in trouble. The average member of the armed services is more likely to share sympathies with the revolutionaries that your average citizen off he street. The most likely result of such an uprising is rural chaos, similar to the Afghan War. If it happens, expect violence to continue for months, not days.Originally Posted by Eric the Green
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
-I'll cover ther hypocritical double-standards over on the "Liberal Hypocrisy" thread.
-Actually, John Lennon's lyrics made the Manson Family kill the LaBiancas and the Tates...
-I would amend that to political killings in a free country (or do you have a problem with the legend of Wilhelm Tell?).
But of course, Justin thinks that America is the land of slavery, and that Russia is the land of freedom. Of course, that's why Justin lives in America, and not in Russia.
1) No gun laws in the US. Ha ha ha!
2) Many of those guns are taken from the Mexican government (stolen or "bought"). As I posted before, most come from places other than the US:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/myth-percent-small-fraction-guns-mexico-come/
The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.
What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."
But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.
So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:
-- The Black Market...
-- Russian crime organizations...
- South America...
-- Asia...
-- The Mexican Army (as I previously posted)... Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."
-- Guatemala...
You stand corrected.
You're welcome.
-Huh. That's another way of saying that gun control doesn't work.
-Stupid laws attract corruption like flies, which is another way of saying that gun control doesn't work.
-Tell that to Patrick Fergusson or Thomas Gage.
This is a poor example:
...GIs consistently blew the crap out of both the Viet Cong and the PAVN.
But the self-procalimed One-Eyed God of Wisdom is right on this one:
...and there's a reason for this.
Privately armed citizens are unlikley to stop an army by themselves at first. But those weapons are the building block that buy you time and opportunity (if you have a pistol, you can capture a rifle, once you have the rifle, you can capture a machine gun, once you have the machine gun...). Without those firearms in private hands, you have a much longer (and bloodier) hill to climb.
-Free people ARE the militia. Look up the Militia Act of 1792 and (IIRC) the Dick Act of 1902.
1) You don't get a right which is any more basic than that of self defense;
2) Privately owned firearms prevent hundreds of thousands of crimes every year;
3) I won't ask about your anti-American obsessions and effeminate fetishes!
...like the Founding Fathers...
-It is the ultimate guarantor of all the other rights as well as a means of practical self defense.
-No, it's simply a recognition that governments can abuse their power; the Founding Fathers had just experienced such a circumstance. It's also a recognition that the government can rarely protect you ("seconds count, and a cop is just 5 minutes away!), and the government is actually under no legal obligation to protect you.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110112/ap_on_re_us/us_self_defense_shooting
A pistol-packing jogger in Florida won't be charged for shooting and killing a teenager who attacked him during a midnight run...
Oh, and these...
Well done, Copperfield.
American Rifleman has a page called "Armed Citizen" which covers about a dozen of the most dramatic cases of private citizens using a firearm to defend themselves or others every month, usually resulting in one or more scumbags being wounded and arrested, or being killed or buried. If you add up the hundreds of thousands of crimes every year where a firearm prevented a crime in less dramatic fashion, you can see we'd be in quite a mess if citizens weren't armed.
I suggest that His Imperial Hohenzollern Majesty diddly-bop his but down to the library and his place of work and take a look. I'm sure they have it on the magazine rack. Every military post does.
-But full auto is less effective from both a rounds-to-hit perspective and in the seconds-to-hit perspective at anything over 50 meters. Full auto is for close in.
BTW, the M16A2 and the M4 don't have a full auto function like the old M16A1 did- they have a 3-round burst for that reason.
Try to stay up-to-date, pops!
-Strange. Plenty of Lefties folded into the Nazi paradigm quite nicely.
-Oh, good God. He found out about the Nazis and was going to pull out his investments. It was FDR's government which asked him to stay in (foot in the door and all that).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescott_Bush
Rumors about the alleged Nazi 'ties' of the late Prescott Bush ... have circulated widely through the internet in recent years. These charges are untenable and politically motivated. Despite some early financial dealings between Prescott Bush and a Nazi industrialist named Fritz Thyssen (who was arrested by the Nazi regime in 1938 and imprisoned during the war), Prescott Bush was neither a Nazi nor a Nazi sympathizer...
-Uh, American Conservatives are anti-hierarchy- it's the Lefties who need their hierarchy.
Fascism is anti-capitalist. The Capitalist is allowed to survive as long as he does what the government wants him to do. If that is "pro-capitalist" then you have a wierd definition of "pro".
If Father Coughlin was a fascist (and I agree with you that he was):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin
Among the articles of the NUSJ, were work and income guarantees, nationalizing "necessary" industry, wealth redistribution through taxation of the wealthy, federal protection of worker's unions, and decreasing property rights in favor of the government controlling the country's assets for "public good."
... please explain which of the above policies YOU disagree with.
Palin Calls Criticism ‘Blood Libel'
The NY Times reports Palin Calls Criticism ‘Blood Libel’
It seems that Palin doesn't intend to back down from her rhetoric. For discussion purposes...
Sarah Palin, who had been silent for days, issued a forceful denunciation of her critics on Wednesday in a video statement that accused pundits and journalists of “blood libel” in what she called their rush to blame heated political rhetoric for the shootings in Arizona.
“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,” Ms. Palin said in a seven-and-a-half minute video posted to her Facebook page. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
The whole south used to be solidly Democrat. Guns, abortion, other conservative issues turned it.
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
Malcolm Reynolds
"I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn't value its librarians doesn't value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?"
Lucien, Librarian of Dream (from The Sandman, issue 57 (1993) by Neil Gaiman)
Early-wave GenX
Sorry? I linked to an article about Obama's speech in Tucson, which compared his with other leaders (Reagan, Clinton, Bush, etc) during times of national distress. I posted the Palin thing early this morning, since no one had yet shared the news that a comment had been made.
My favorite line from that article:
"At bottom, legitimate humanitarians inspired by real compassion inevitably seek to help men become more responsible for themselves, not less."
This is not a moderate position, but rather one which challenges the very underpinnings of what it means to be "liberal" vs "conservative." I agree with it completely.
I found that incredibly powerful, too. It hits to the very core of where I stand on social programs, rights granted by the Constitution and anyone who tries to take away our rights.
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." —Albert Einstein
"The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal." —Albert Einstein
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” —Albert Einstein
Ah, I see. Yes, I'm not a big fan. I have no problem with her asking questions -- she's pretty good at that -- but I'm afraid I really don't want to see her in office. She's a little too totalitarian for me. Sorry.
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." —Albert Einstein
"The road to perdition has ever been accompanied by lip service to an ideal." —Albert Einstein
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.” —Albert Einstein
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Good points M&L
"You can tell someone who boozes by the company he chooses ... and the pig got up and slowly walked away."
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
I would say calling her shrewd is giving her a bit more credit than she actually deserves. It seems like every time she opens her mouth, she digs herself in deeper...Keep talking, Sarah, keep talking...She is her own worst enemy.
Besides whether or not this guy was follower of hers is kind of beside the point. The fact of the matter is that she has been using hate speech from the moment she arrived on the scene. She is sarcastic and snarky and she truly enjoys the label of pitbull. I mean come on, she put crossbows on the woman's district and specifically named her as a target. Now she is trying to back peddle. I'm not suggesting this guy was a follower of hers and did this because Sarah Palin told him to. I don't think that this the case. But for Sarah Palin to come out and say she bears no blame for the political environment and the rhetoric that goes today in Washington is pretty sad. She loves to stir the pot.
But the fact of the matter is regardless of whether the shooter did this for political reasons or if it was just simply a matter of a personal vendetta because he didn't like the way Gifford responded to him previously, doesn't negate the fact that we do not have problem in this country with too much hate. We have been saying on this forum for the past year that many of us fear violence will erupt because political differences. We talk about how the divide in country reminds us of our country back during the time of the civil war. So it is there. To say that just because it wasn't the reason for this particular attack is to just bury our heads in the sand. It doesn't mean it won't happen in the future.
Last edited by ASB65; 01-12-2011 at 05:50 PM.
NO, it is quite well documented that the South turned over race, primarily. Guns are an issue in all rural and conservative areas, not just the south.
The South was solidly Democratic because of race, and now it is solidly Republican for the same reason. It turned in the 1960s, starting with Goldwater in 1964. I take it you remember which year the civil rights bill was passed???
I disagree with Amy, Copperfield, you and anyone else who believes in the 2nd Amendment.
I think the fact that Americans have this obsession, or fetish, with guns, is the primary index that we are a backwards, barbaric society that doesn't know the meaning of the word "civilized." We now live in a society where you can't walk anywhere on the streets without fearing that someone might pull a gun on you; whether they own that gun legally or illegally. There are too many guns. There ought to be none.
The only way to get guns out of the hands of thugs is to make them illegal, and enforce the law. That's what people in NY and LA have decided, because they KNOW. You notwithstanding Roadbuilder.
I go further than David K on this one, but I agree with his point. If people in rural areas want to hang onto their toys and kill animals for fun, they should at least stop supporting the NRA's attempts to make all guns legally accessible, and concealed, everywhere, to anyone.
If we have to depend on our own guns for self-defense, then this is what kind of society we have (and I have little doubt that we do now, given all this talk here):
1. Since we can't trust the government to protect us, self-defense is our only means of protection.
2. Since we depend on guns to protect ourselves, what we have is a lawless, wild west society.
3. Furthermore, since we believe in this gun dogma, we will continue to have this society forever.
And no, I don't want to visit "gun land" Heartland America. I value my life, and really don't want to associate with folks who carry guns and are afraid for their lives because of what their neighbors or some thugs from down the street might do.
There is one purpose for guns-- to kill people and animals. For me, that means guns are crazy. All guns; I don't care which one, copperfield.
You can cite hundreds of cases of self-defense. You can also cite thousands of cases of accidental shootings, and mass murders committed by people with guns who should not have gotten guns.
Although I am against guns, I am at a loss to explain why so many people are "neutral" about, or against, "gun control." Control is not a ban. It means you register people who wish to buy a gun, provide a waiting period while a background check is made, and deny the right to buy a gun to someone who is mentally ill or criminal. That is the least any sane society would do. Heartland America, I must conclude, is insane, if it can't get with this, and insists instead that people should carry concealed weapons in public.
I understand both sides of this issue. I know about fear, and about fun toys. Just because one understands both sides of an issue, does not mean one cannot take a stand on it.
Politicians must do what they think will win them votes. Folks like me need to speak out and say what is right, for the sake of their society and nation. I recognize too that it will be a while, if ever, before the United States does the right thing on this issue. A start was made in 1993 with the Brady Bill. At the end, Ronald Reagan supported it, because he recognized that guns in the hands of the wrong person crippled his friend.
But guns may indeed one issue that splits up the United States. I say let red or Heartland America split up from those of us who don't want to live in fear, and form their own wild west sub-nation. Then you guys in Red America wouldn't have to listen to us blue folks harp on you about guns. I think it would be great. Smaller is beautiful.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 01-12-2011 at 06:04 PM.
Looks like only 35% of Americans agree that "political rhetoric" caused the attacks. Also Over 70% agree that stricter gun would NOT have made a difference. This is despite the massive media assualt by the Liberal media and their allies in Hollywood and Entertainment industries.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...shooting_N.htm
It is not quite that simple. To say it is "more effective" is true in some circumstances. Any weapon fired rapidly (including semi-auto weapons) will become less accurate with progressive shots. In other words, the first shot will be accurate, the second shot less so, the third even less. Rapid fire (at least in regards to a personal rifle or handgun) is more a tool for suppression and intimidation than accurate fire. If the idea is to hit a given target with a bullet then slow, steady firing is vastly more accurate, especially as range increases.
It also depends on the design of the weapon, weight of the weapon, caliber used, cartridge used, skill of the shooter, etc.
Here is a video that illustrates the differences between M-16/AR-15 and AK-47 platforms. At the end is a comparison of accuracy on full auto fire. Note that the gentleman firing the AK has to fire in 3 round bursts just too barely stay on target due to the greater recoil from the rifle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuwR4LLvoc4
And some more rapid fire from AK's. As you can see, shots 3 and 4 are starting to wander off target and up the hill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru44_rc-tSc
Ho hum; the usual nonsense from Americans. But I agree pretty much with point #1. Perhaps political rhetoric contributed to the atmosphere in which it took place, but there's no way to prove it. If it causes 35% to think so, then perhaps it might make a difference if some Americans decide to cool their rhetoric. It is a good lesson if people decide that talk about shooting political opponents contributes to violence, and stop doing it. It is not really necessarily to politicize it and say the right wing is to blame for this violence because of their rhetoric. Maybe it is, or maybe not; but this only adds to the rhetoric that already exists.
I take it by liberal media you mean, that portion of the media that is liberal. Anything else is just more divisive political rhetoric, not fact or truth-based. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Sounds good in theory but it doesn't always work to well in practice. Meth is illegal too, but that doesn't stop meth labs that are just about every town in this country. Trying to completely ban guns would probably work out about as well as prohibition did. Criminals would still get their hands on them. I don't think there will ever come a time when guns are completely outlawed. Like it or not, they are part of our culture.
Obviously you haven't really spent any time in the heartland if you don't think that's how most people who own guns feel. That's exactly how they feel. They don't have problem with background checks and they don't want guns in the hands of people who are mentally ill or have criminal backgrounds. They do support a lot of the gun laws. Most people who live there agree with you. Honestly, Eric, we are not as barbaric as you seem to think we are.Although I am against guns, I am at a loss to explain why so many people are "neutral" about, or against, "gun control." Control is not a ban. It means you register people who wish to buy a gun, provide a waiting period while a background check is made, and deny the right to buy a gun to someone who is mentally ill or criminal. That is the least any sane society would do. Heartland American, I must conclude, is insane, if it can't get with this, and insists instead that people should carry concealed weapons in public.
Well gee Eric. I live in a solidly blue state with one of the most pro-firearm population and state constitution in the country (This basically describes all of New England with the exception of Massachusettes). What should we do?
Guns and cookies
As in civil rights?
PS And who are we so very scared of that we need Automatic weapons? Teenagers? Oligarchs? Home invaders? And what color are they?
Look, I have been reading this thread, trying to make sense of page after page of gun talk and I just do not get it. My parents were European so maybe that's why I wasn't raised with this idea of guns. I honestly do not get it.
And I am NOT being "liberal" here. I am very suspicious internationally, and it comes out in my more conservative views on international affairs. I initially supported our decision to go into Iraq because I thought we needed to do something to maintain some sort of "control" of "our" oil on account of I am partial to my car. But when I realized that we were not going to have a draft, but instead were going to pay hallibuton to occupy the middle east for us, I realized it would Not work. Way cheaper to build more nuclear plants and seek alternatives for our cars.
So... I see a country where we refuse to go into the military, where we could use our automatic weapons to our hearts content, but no! We'd rather sleep with our semi automatics under our pillow, safe in our cozy bed, protecting us from what???
I have no problem with rifles to hunt. I personally wouldn't like to kill something, but I happily eat beef, chicken, fish, pork. I know somebody killed it. I do not mind hunting over populated species, but find it freaky to do it from a helicopter. Like fishing from a stocked pond. It just doesn't seem fair. But hey, if you want to do it, just clean them and let me eat them.
The point I am making is that I am not trying to make a moral argument. I am just trying to understand why all this passion for guns. Again, rifles and handguns with proper training and licenses and waiting periods to try to scan for unstable personalities are A-OK by me. But why semi automatic weapons? Why do we have to carry them into bars? Who are we protecting ourselves from?
I cannot help but think the real fear is "the other". Again I would like to reference my brother in law who is way smarter than me. He says we will never get health care in this country because we have too many different tribes. He says in Sweden they are more all one "family" with a long history together... They don't mind helping out members of the family who are sick or crazy or lazy, they are family. But here, "they" are not " us". They are different and scary and who the hell needs them here anyhow. He says I should stop worrying my pretty little head about it and go bake some of those great cookies I make.
After reading all this gun talk, I am inclined to agree with him.
jadams
"Can it be believed that the democracy that has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?" Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Move to a red state. And, take your guns with you.
You can say that again.
During the Civil War, military leaders could have used repeating rifles, but chose to stick with muzzle-loading muskets, because they thought the soldiers would "waste ammunition."
Nowadays, military folks prefer to fill the battlefield with lead. It's a change in strategy.
So ... in the hypothetical where someone is defending his home against some attacker, it would be most foolish to use a fully-automatic military rifle. Unless, of course, one had several compatriots similarly armed.
I can't imagine a realistic circumstance where a single person could ever find a self-defense application for a fully automatic weapon.
" ... a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition."
The Liberal media Im referring to is the cabal of reporters, correspondents, actors, directors and writers who largely inhabit the major networks, the NY Times, WaPo and many news magazines as well as the entertainment industry. Many of them are from privileged backgrounds and attended prep school and Ivy league schools together and really havent a clue who most middle class Americans live. Like you, they consider anyone who doesnt reside in Beverly Hills, San fran or Manhatten as a dumb hick who cannot think for himself. Thier attitude is on display daily in the industry they work in. Notice how many "new" anchors and personalities are fomer staffers to Democrats....Russert (deceased) George Step-on-all-of-us, Brian Williams.
Jim Carney from Time who is now Bidens spokesman...it goes on and on. One big incestuous group of sycophants and backslappers.....
-An example, please.
1) You mean, "crosshairs."
2) So did Lefties:
...where is your outrage over that? You probably feel none, because your "outrage" is phony. As I pointed out over this:
...so much for the open-minded liberal. Or whatever you are.
-Nonsense. Race was dead issue by 1970. The Donkeys lost the south over national defense, first in '72. Even McGovern admitted that there was little difference between Nixon and himself over social issues. The South went back to the Donkeys in 1976, then bailed because of defense issues. The Donkeys continued pandering to the USSR finished the job.
-Actually, gun ownership in the US is associated with lower rates of crime.
And the UK:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1950860/the_uk_gun_ban.html
How has that UK gun ban been working?
- In the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled.
- Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York.
- England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's.
- 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police.
In a [2002] United Nations study of crime in 18 developed nations, England and Wales led the Western world's crime league, with nearly 55 crimes per 100 people.
...and Australia:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=15304
Though lawmakers responsible for passing the ban promised a safer country, the nation's crime statistics tell a different story:
- Countrywide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
- Assaults are up 8.6 percent;
- Amazingly, armed robberies have climbed nearly 45 percent;
- In the Australian state of Victoria, gun homicides have climbed 300 percent;
- In the 25 years before the gun bans, crime in Australia had been dropping steadily;
- There has been a reported "dramatic increase" in home burglaries and assaults on the elderly.
...huh.
I like your brother in law. He does seem like a pretty preceptive guy. He may have a very valid point here. It has been us against them going all the way back to earliest settlers and Native American Indians. I don't think any group of immigrants were ever truly welcomed with open arms. The words at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty are very poetic, but I don't think most people living back then really wanted the tired, poor and huddled masses. Look at how many react to the Mexican immigrants today. Many countries have basically one religion. We have thousands. I'm not saying that we should one religion. I would be totally against that, but that is just another way we label and divide ourselves in this country.
Nope, we are not one tribe. We are not one family. Many people don't even like others from their neighboring state.
Last edited by ASB65; 01-12-2011 at 06:50 PM.
I don't like it, and I know that culture can change. Whether it will or not in the future, is another question. But gun culture is IMO a sick culture.
Alcohol and drugs are not like guns. Guns are simply a dangerous product or toy. They are not an addictive substance.
Well, maybe that's good to hear. But-- It is obvious that the heartland is against gun control. How do I know? Because there aren't any gun control laws there. There are no national laws either except the inadequate ones passed back in 1968. I saw it on the news. I don't have to go somewhere to know what the laws are there.Obviously you haven't really spent any time in the heartland if you don't think that's how most people who own guns feel. That's exactly how they feel. They don't have problem with background checks and they don't want guns in the hands of people who are mentally ill or have criminal backgrounds. They do support a lot of the gun laws. Most people who live there agree with you. Honestly, Eric, we are not as barbaric as you seem to think we are.
And why don't people who own guns, consider getting rid of them? What are they for, if it is not either:
a) a culture of fear of one's neighbors or of lots of bandits around, which is a barbaric condition or
b) a culture that considers killing animals for sport fun, and worth defending no matter what the effect on society, which to me is also a barbaric culture, or
c) farmers who want to keep coyotes and such off their ranch; but there are other ways of doing this which they aren't considering, and which work.
JDG 66 is James Glick, right? Not much more I need to know.
