Originally Posted by annla899

From this discussion and others I've read/heard those of us who don't hunt or own guns know little about them.

When I was a victim of a violent crime many years ago, a cop told me to get a gun. I told him I wouldn't know how to fire a gun and he said, "It's easy. Just point and squeeze." The cop was a homicide, rape and class X detective. He'd seen the worst of the worst. But, had there been a gun available during that crime, I'd probably be dead, since I was ambushed when asleep in my bed at 2am by a man who crawled in my 2nd floor window. He was fully capable of killing, since once he was arrested he confessed to two murders along with multiple rapes. I am one of the fortunate. This guy was caught and remains in prison since 1978.

Having lived through this experience, I am always dumbstruck that many people somehow believe they would be able to disarm the attacker or defend and protect themselves and others when attacked. It's more likely that those with military or police training could, but the perp still has an huge jump on you, especially in civilian life. Dude's way ahead of you. You just get to react. Without constant training to get physical responses in split second conditioning, you're way behind. Even if you have all that, I'm not betting on your chances.

This Rambo mythology is just that. A myth.

I have nothing against hunting. I am not anti-gun. But I have my reservations about collecting arsenals. I think it's delusional.

In your situation, a gun wouldn't have protected you, stopped your attacker or done society much good. But, if you owned a gun and you were comfortable shooting the gun and you had confidence in your ability to aim, squeeze the trigger and hit your targets. Your position as far as your own defense and the defense of others significantly improves. Now, if your situation had changed a bit like the perp made some noise that woke you up in advance and you had the time to arm yourself, take cover and position yourself to surprise/ambush him as he came thru your window or came thru your bedroom door or as he approached your bed and all that remained involved a decission to pull trigger and end the life of a bad guy. Would your view of guns and their importance be the same or closer to mine? I'm not Rambo and it doesn't take a Rambo to end the life or reign of a rapist, killer and criminal because they're not Rambo's either.

Eric, your anti-gun extremism is part of the problem. There will be no meaningful gun control legislation as long as the rhetoric on our side is dominated by ignorant urbanites like you who think all guns are the devil. People with attitudes like yours are a major reason the Dems were crushed in 1994.

We need reasonable regulations, like licensing all guns, and requiring gun owners to buy insurance for our guns like we buy insurance for our cars. We can also put a big tax on ammo. Frame it as gun SAFETY legislation rather than "gun control".

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Who's on the defensive here? Who's winning or losing ground here? Are you gaining ground with us or are you losing ground with us or is there simply no ground to gain at this point? BTW, banning guns is a typical liberal knee-jerk response and jumping in on a liberal's knee-jerk response makes you a liberal knee-jerk too dude.

i said nothing about banning guns. who's doing the knee-jerk now?

you really are a dumbass.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

He means on the defense for personal responsibility and he is correct. Personal responsibility (and those who are responsible) is under constant attack and requires constant defense. Vultures are always drawn to carcasses. It's in their nature after all.

Like I said, a follower, and followers are very important tools for increasing power and control.

oh, that old shibboleth. "personal responsibility."

meaningless rhetoric.

unless you, copperfield, are that rare creature indeed. a sovereign nation unto yourself.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Yep. And your point is... what, exactly? That I read this Morgan Freeman copypasta chain letter thing and that's what I'm advocating?

Nope. Sorry to disappoint, but this is something that I've been pushing since long before the appearance of that spurious Morgan Freeman quote.



Is a 9mm semi-automatic pistol a "high-powered" weapon? Is a .22 LR pistol a "high-powered" weapon? Is a pump-action shotgun a "high-powered" weapon? Is a break-action double-barrel shotgun a "high-powered" weapon?

The first two were the only weapons used in the deadliest school shooting in our nation's history (the Virginia Tech massacre). The second two were used to devastating effect (along with a 9mm carbine and a 9mm pistol, neither of which are exactly high-powered military grade weapons) in the most famous (the Columbine massacre).

What's the definition of "high-powered" that you're working from here?

The Bushmaster used in the Sandy Hook massacre fires an intermediate cartridge that's under powered for most hunting purposes. The .22 LR pistol used in the Virginia Tech massacre is near the bottom end of the scale, in terms of the power of the round. The thing that you (and Deb and others) don't get is that the relative lack of power of the weapons typically used in such shootings is the very reason that the shooters choose them. The 5.56 NATO round (the military equivalent of the .223 used in the recent massacre) isn't used in the M16 and M4 family of military weapons because it's especially powerful. It's used because it results in a lighter weapon with less recoil that's all around easier to handle. Incidentally, that's the same reason that the 9mm parabellum round is used by militaries and police forces around the world.

And that's exactly why the .223 has found a niche in the civilian market, not as a hunting rifle that can bring down deer or other relatively large game (hint: deer aren't actually all that large), but as a varmint rifle or, in some cases, a brush gun, roles in which ease of handling is privileged over killing power. It's why Copperfield uses a weapon chambered for that round to hunt woodchucks, not bears. It's why ranchers use the same weapon to kill coyotes and wild dogs.

So when people like you (and Deb) run around saying, "High-powered weapons! High-powered weapons!" not only does it indicate that you literally don't know the first thing about the subject, it suggests that legislators motivated by your appeals won't actually craft laws that are likely to do anything about the problem. Because those lawmakers will consult with people who do know what they're talking about, and they'll find out that the problem isn't high-powered weapons, it's weapons of low to intermediate power that are relatively easy to handle. And if those lawmakers don't do that, then the judges who strike those laws down certainly will. At best, you'll end up with laws like the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which focus primarily on the appearance of a weapon, not its function. So the AR15 gets banned, because its appearance gives people the vapors, but the functionally equivalent Ruger Mini-14 does not. Or the TEC-9 gets banned specifically by name (because it's so scary looking) but functionally equivalent 9mm semi-automatic pistols, pistols that are superior across the board (and easier to conceal on top of that), remain readily available on store shelves.



Nice strawman, bro.

The media is already censored. Have you ever seen the Columbine shooters' manifesto tape? No? Neither have I. The manifesto tape exists, people have viewed it, and still frames have been released. Quite some time after the shooting vague details surfaced about what was actually on it. But you and I will probably never see it, because it has been censored by the authorities. There are any number of things that are routinely suppressed or even destroyed (like the Homolka tapes) by authorities investigating high profile crimes. The specifics of novel or exotic murders are routinely kept from the press. Censorship in criminal investigations is actually pretty routine.

Media self-censorship is common, too. There is a kind of gentleman's agreement among news media outlets to minimize coverage of youth suicides, for example. This is based on the not exactly unsupported theory that coverage of suicides can trigger additional suicides. It used to be that the news media would refuse to broadcast the manifestos and demands of terrorists or other violent criminals, on the not exactly unsupported theory that it would only encourage the use of violence by people who want to get their message out. Of course, that has broken down since the 1990s. For example, NBC was quite comfortable blaring the Virginia Tech shooter's tape from coast to coast. Other news outlets blasted NBC for that decision but, of course, they showed clips and aired transcripts, too.

Whenever a massacre like this happens, we are treated to sensationalistic coverage that is impossible to escape. Grainy pictures of the killer are blown up. His name is drilled into our heads. We get computerized reenactments of the crime. We get detailed timelines of the killer's preparations. Reporters thrust microphones in the faces of people that the killer had some tangential relationship to because they have to find something to put on the air so people don't change the channel. We even get (as in the case of the Virginia Tech shooting) Stephen King commenting on the incoherent play the murderer wrote for a creative writing class.

Now, all of that would be objectionable for the reason that the overwhelming majority of it tends to be complete and utter bullshit, especially during the first few days of the story, when interest is highest.

But, more importantly, it sends the crystal clear message that all someone has to do to get the attention of the entire nation, from regular citizens on up to the President of the United States, is to walk into a place that's lightly defended and start killing innocent people. "Do that," we tell troubled young people, "and you will become a household name. People hundreds, even thousands, of miles away will discuss the conditions of your life over dinner. You will force movie studios to change their release schedules, schools to revise their safety plans, experts to puzzle over the mystery that was you, and politicians to debate. Just pull the trigger and, for the length of about one news cycle, you will be the talk of the nation. Your name will go down in history."

Some people will work tirelessly their entire lives for just the opportunity to become a household name. Meanwhile, we offer a pretty much guaranteed shortcut to the same level of fame, a method that just happens to be tailor made for troubled and suicidal young men.

You don't think that has an impact? Really?

Am I suggesting "censoring" the media?

No. At least not in the sense that government agents should be dispatched to the networks to control news coverage. But maybe a little restraint is in order. Maybe it's not a particularly fantastic idea for the news media to turn mass murderers into superstars. Maybe bullhorning every little detail of a mass murderer's life across the country (and to a certain extent around the world) makes it more likely for troubled young men who believe that they haven't gotten the attention or respect from the world that they feel they deserve to decide to pull the trigger. Maybe we should listen to the psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists who point out that these massacres tend to cluster, that coverage of one such event seems to trigger others. Maybe we should listen to the investigators who have pored over these people's lives and tell us that these murderers are aware that their murder sprees will generate media coverage and make their decisions based on that.

Maybe?

Nah. Just a smokescreen, right, "Bouncer"?

hey, a coherent and intelligent response. i like that.

i can't speak to the specifics of the gun debate, so i'll let your discussion of those weapons stand.

but you have to acknowledge that with regard to the second amendment, the founding fathers had no clue that people would be arming themselves to quite this extent. plus, they had just gotten out of a revolution and were really conscious of the people's need to protect themselves against armed occupation.

we may have to consider the possibility that we'll have to do something constitutionally about the matter.

question, though -- about this idea of killers doing it for notoriety -- since so many of these guys kill themselves afterwards, how do they get to see their names in the paper or their mugshots on tv? couldn't there be some other motivation?

Originally Posted by Odin

Eric, your anti-gun extremism is part of the problem. There will be no meaningful gun control legislation as long as the rhetoric on our side is dominated by ignorant urbanites like you who think all guns are the devil. People with attitudes like yours are a major reason the Dems were crushed in 1994.

We need reasonable regulations, like licensing all guns, and requiring gun owners to buy insurance for our guns like we buy insurance for our cars. We can also put a big tax on ammo. Frame it as gun SAFETY legislation rather than "gun control".

Spoken like a Ruritan. I'm sorry, but the balance is not gun v not-gun. It is very definitiely urban v rural. Right now, the rural side is winning, but the population is shifting to urban areas fast. In a decade or two, the balance will be on the undeniably on the urban side. I asume you don't want to have your guns confiscated then, so a bit of bending now is a good idea all around.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Spoken like a Ruritan. I'm sorry, but the balance is not gun v not-gun. It is very definitiely urban v rural. Right now, the rural side is winning, but the population is shifting to urban areas fast. In a decade or two, the balance will be on the undeniably on the urban side. I asume you don't want to have your guns confiscated then, so a bit of bending now is a good idea all around.

The balance is actually between urban and non-urban and non-urban has been winning and economic policy has been shifting more and more in the favor of non-urban.

So You Think You Know the Second Amendment?

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQu14m00


Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law.


For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.


Enter the modern National Rifle Association. Before the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. had been devoted mostly to non-political issues, like gun safety. But a coup d’état at the group’s annual convention in 1977 brought a group of committed political conservatives to power—as part of the leading edge of the new, more rightward-leaning Republican Party. (Jill Lepore recounted this history in a recent piece for The New Yorker.) The new group pushed for a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, one that gave individuals, not just militias, the right to bear arms. It was an uphill struggle. At first, their views were widely scorned. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was no liberal, mocked the individual-rights theory of the amendment as “a fraud.”



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQtU3wZZ

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

The balance is actually between urban and non-urban and non-urban has been winning and economic policy has been shifting more and more in the favor of non-urban.

We'll see if that's so. Unlike Boomers and Xers, Millies are much more likley to be urbanites.

Originally Posted by the bouncer

oh, that old shibboleth. "personal responsibility."

meaningless rhetoric.

unless you, copperfield, are that rare creature indeed. a sovereign nation unto yourself.

It's meaningless rhetoric to someone who recently voted to shift responsibilities to someone else.

Originally Posted by Deb C

So You Think You Know the Second Amendment?

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQu14m00


Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law.


For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.


Enter the modern National Rifle Association. Before the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. had been devoted mostly to non-political issues, like gun safety. But a coup d’état at the group’s annual convention in 1977 brought a group of committed political conservatives to power—as part of the leading edge of the new, more rightward-leaning Republican Party. (Jill Lepore recounted this history in a recent piece for The New Yorker.) The new group pushed for a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, one that gave individuals, not just militias, the right to bear arms. It was an uphill struggle. At first, their views were widely scorned. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was no liberal, mocked the individual-rights theory of the amendment as “a fraud.”



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQtU3wZZ

I agree, of course. The only reason the individual rights theory of the 2nd amendment has been upheld recently, is because we have a right-wing Republican court appointed by right-wing presidents Reagan and the Bush's, who have been voted in by people deceived by trickle-down economics and other reactionary ideologies over the last 30-plus years. If people would vote correctly, we would not be saddled with a right-wing court.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Yes, and that's good. But at the time, it was an obvious obstruction to actual conversation.

It's fine to learn more about guns. But it doesn't change the issue at all. It doesn't matter if there are different kinds of assault, rapid-fire weapons. No-one needs to have any of them. My point did not change at all. It is people who are confusing the issue by talking about different kinds of these weapons that are doing the "obstruction."

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

We'll see if that's so. Unlike Boomer and Xers, Millies are much more likley to be urbanites.

What makes you think that? I'd say the Millies will more likey become burbanites or stay burbanites.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Firstly, the articles you posted are either sensationalist nonsense or they're utterly ignorant op ed drivel.

I don't know where you get that. I posted reports by well-known sources, and stats from encyclopedias and researchers.

Semi-auto means that all you have to do to get a single shot to fire is depress the trigger, but it doesn't keep firing until you depress the trigger again. One shot per depression of the trigger. Any more and it's considered full auto. Anybody who says otherwise is wrong, because it's a matter of fact.

Fine; it was a rapid-fire weapon that Lanza and other killers have used. It doesn't matter whether it was auto or semi-auto, and no-one was claiming any such difference. All those weapons need to be banned; that is clear.

As for the animal suffering a few more seconds... I'm sorry, but if somebody shoots me in the gut and there's no way that I'm going to get taken to a hospital or receive the type of care that will get me healed, I'd consider it the worst thing possible if you didn't put one between my eyes and end it for me immediately, and I'd be somewhat disgusted.

It's up to you to raise non-issues or not. We need to keep humans safe. We don't need semi-automatic weapons in order to shoot dying animals.

And I'm not so sure about your defense of arsenals either. I'm not talking about a ban on arsenals, but you can only carry one gun at a time. It seems to me, if you live in an area where you don't know what you might meet up with, you'd want to carry a gun that could meet any challenge, not just one of a variety of weapons that can kill small animals. And you don't need a military-style weapon unless you are in a war. Now, maybe there are some people in America who want a civil war, I admit.

Also, if you're trying to make a retroactive ban, that'd be pretty much unconstitutional (no ex post facto laws), and therefore illegal, so that's just never happening.

I don't know why you can't just make possession of weapons of certain kinds illegal.

Explosives are pretty much illegal most places, but that doesn't stop them from being manufactured personally, which can be done quite easily using basic household chemicals, which you could amass enough of relatively quickly without arousing much concern. Again, The Columbine shooters did deploy explosives, they just didn't explode them. The Aurora shooter did deploy explosives, the police just eventually disarmed them.

They did not use any of them to kill. It was easier and more effective to use the guns, so they did.

Also, an assault weapons ban wouldn't apply to the AR-15, because it's semi-auto and at this point, because of the sheer volume of them out there... You just won't be able to stick a "and lookalikes" clause on there and expect it to be enforcible. It wouldn't bother me either way if it was, other than I hate stupid, unenforcible laws.

It's quite enforceable, and we'd better not give up just because there are too many of them. That's the whole problem, obviously. There are too many guns, and too many rapid-fire guns. They all need to be restricted, and military-style weapons need to be banned. We can't surrender and just let these incidents keep happening and turn our country into a war zone.

Originally Posted by the bouncer

oh, that old shibboleth. "personal responsibility."

meaningless rhetoric.

unless you, copperfield, are that rare creature indeed. a sovereign nation unto yourself.

He IS exactly that! (or thinks he is)

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It's fine to learn more about guns. But it doesn't change the issue at all. It doesn't matter if there are different kinds of assault, rapid-fire weapons. No-one needs to have any of them. My point did not change at all. It is people who are confusing the issue by talking about different kinds of these weapons that are doing the "obstruction."

As usual, you're having major issues with common sense.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

The balance is actually between urban and non-urban and non-urban has been winning and economic policy has been shifting more and more in the favor of non-urban.

Not fast enough.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

As usual, you're having major issues with common sense.

People who say those kinds of things about me, just disagree with me, and would rather hurl insults than to deal with realities.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

What makes you think that? I'd say the Millies will more likey become burbanites or stay burbanites.

The argument there is about home ownership. I'm not so sure that the Millies will willingly walk away from the urban life just to buy a 3,000 sq.ft. POS in the 'burbs. Many are already shunning automobile ownership, and they are far and away the Greenest generation still taking nourishment. I don't see life on a golf course being their raison d'etre.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

The argument there is about home ownership. I'm not so sure that the Millies will willingly walk away from the urban life just to buy a 3,000 sq.ft. POS in the 'burbs. Many are already shunning automobile ownership, and they are far and away the Greenest generation still taking nourishment. I don't see life on a golf course being their raison d'etre.

The argument I read in favor of a move out of the city was that when they have children, they will want larger houses, more places to play, and better schools. Whether those are to be found in the suburbs is a matter of debate.

Originally Posted by Deb C

So You Think You Know the Second Amendment?

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQu14m00


Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law.


For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.


Enter the modern National Rifle Association. Before the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. had been devoted mostly to non-political issues, like gun safety. But a coup d’état at the group’s annual convention in 1977 brought a group of committed political conservatives to power—as part of the leading edge of the new, more rightward-leaning Republican Party. (Jill Lepore recounted this history in a recent piece for The New Yorker.) The new group pushed for a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, one that gave individuals, not just militias, the right to bear arms. It was an uphill struggle. At first, their views were widely scorned. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was no liberal, mocked the individual-rights theory of the amendment as “a fraud.”



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQtU3wZZ

You might want to read The Commonplace Second Amendment, by Prof. Volokh, UCLA Law School. It turns out that a construction of "justification phrase" followed by "implementation phrase" was common in colonial times. In order to encourage voters or legislatures to approve a given right, the authors would put a reason for the right before enumerating the right itself. It was not uncommon that the right did more than the justification specifies.

Another bit of history to note is that following the Reconstruction, the Jim Crow Supreme Court nullified the entire Bill of Rights. The theory was that the federal government had no police powers. Thus, it was up to the states to protect the Rights of the People. At the time it was more important politically to suppress the rights of negroes than to protect the rights of citizens.

This Jim Crow interpretation of the Constitution held through the early 20th century until Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP worked through the Bill of Rights reestablishing each right in turn, except the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment was only reestablished in 2008 with District of Columbia v Heller.

Sanford Levinson's The Embarrassing Second Amendment was one of the first legal papers, published in the Yale Law Journal, to propose treating the 2nd Amendment using the same language and interpretation as the rest of the (post Thurgood Marshall) Bill of Rights. This was followed by similar legal arguments, then by rulings from various courts confirming Levinson's interpretation.

I will acknowledge that the 2nd Amendment was for well over a century interpreted out of the Constitution. One should not forget that the other rights were also trampled upon. As an example, negroes in the south might have a right to assemble and to petition the government for the redress of grievances, but if negroes assembled for any purpose other than to petition to redress grievances it was considered right and proper for posses to seize weapons and beat said negroes to a pulp. The notion that the 2nd Amendment was not an individual right originated in the Jim Crow era for Jim Crow's reasons.

Anyway, if you want to argue legalities, history and the old court cases, you might want to review my old web site, The Right to Keep and Bear Arms. It's dated. I stopped updating it once it became clear that the courts were flowing towards an honest interpretation of the 2nd. Still, it will introduce those under the sway of the Jim Crow interpretations to more of the history.

Originally Posted by Deb C

So You Think You Know the Second Amendment?

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQu14m00


Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law.


For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon.


Enter the modern National Rifle Association. Before the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. had been devoted mostly to non-political issues, like gun safety. But a coup d’état at the group’s annual convention in 1977 brought a group of committed political conservatives to power—as part of the leading edge of the new, more rightward-leaning Republican Party. (Jill Lepore recounted this history in a recent piece for The New Yorker.) The new group pushed for a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, one that gave individuals, not just militias, the right to bear arms. It was an uphill struggle. At first, their views were widely scorned. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, who was no liberal, mocked the individual-rights theory of the amendment as “a fraud.”



Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz2FQtU3wZZ

I have always understood the concept of a "well-regulated militia" to imply at the least the assumption that those that a well-regulated militia (in contrast to a wild band of brigands or a terrorist cell) implies the exclusion of those who would not fit into such a militia because of their criminality, lunacy, mental retardation, addiction, or disloyalty.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

It's meaningless rhetoric to someone who recently voted to shift responsibilities to someone else.

because, of course, copperfield can do it all himself. as i suspected, he's a sovereign entity. answerable to no one but himself.

sorry, kid. we don't live that way in the real world. i believe in government of, by, and for the people. that's why we have elections.

we live in a representative democracy, not the jungle.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I don't know where you get that. I posted reports by well-known sources, and stats from encyclopedias and researchers.

Fine; it was a rapid-fire weapon that Lanza and other killers have used. It doesn't matter whether it was auto or semi-auto, and no-one was claiming any such difference. All those weapons need to be banned; that is clear.

What the hell is a "rapid-fire" weapon?

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

The balance is actually between urban and non-urban and non-urban has been winning and economic policy has been shifting more and more in the favor of non-urban.

Barack Obama won the Presidency in 2008 because he was able to win much of the suburban vote that Republicans thought theirs forever even as he lost the rural vote by margins that one associates with McGovern and Mondale. In 2012 he did much the same. Maybe Suburbia is becoming increasingly urban and less rural in its economic and demographic realities; the Republicans have yet to show that they have a clue.