I guess this ends the gun debate once and for allFollow

I see, making them slaves to people who don't make a taxable income.

The 21st century pharaohs have the slaves begging for work.

Edited, Mar 29th 2010 9:04pm by paulsol

Well, I worry about the government oppressing me and my family and like-minded individuals. I also worry about defending my family and my home from people who shouldn't be there. I also know how to track, kill and clean game to provide for myself and my family. On the pro/con balance sheet of why I should get to keep guns and what I will tell people who disagree, that little trifecta slants it way over to "you can pry my gun from my cold dead fingers" or more simply "f'uck off"

Add to that the unassailably cool fact that I can now throw on a double shoulder holster rig, go down to the city park and barbecue with my kids just to **** off the liberals in St. Paul, I'm what you might call a happy camper.

I could probably go to the park with an assault rifle and nobody would notice.

:(

Haha, Texas.

Honestly, it's not the parks that bother me so much as the bars....[/quote]
I don't drink when I have a loaded firearm.

Any more.

Can I be both liberal and pro-gun?

If a half-blank Kenyan Muslim can become president of the United States of America, you can be whatever you want to be princess.

Modern policing is a wonderful thing, especially with all this wizz-bang forensics. Of course, it's all a bit more efficient if you only have one to three layers of law enforcement tops, and hardly any jurisdictional brangling. IE, having local government cops whose teeny jurisdictions making up a crazy quilt covering the nation, and who are in rivalry with State cop and National cop jurisdictions makes my head ache and my eyes pop. I mean, I get how this evolved from the historic roots of the continent, but can't you have cleaned it up a bit since then?

We went metric, got rid of our one and two cent pieces, amalgamated our local councils into a smaller number of bigger area councils and our local councils certainly don't run their own cops. US nature is breathtaking, most US individuals fantastic, but your political and executive structures drive me nuts. NUTS.


If anyone is going to go up against a modern government using a nation's armed forces, they're fucked. The civvies aren't allowed anything like what the army has, any where. Including America. If you think your constitutional right to bear arms is going to protect you from your government, and keep the government in line, you're looney tunes. The fastest way to turn around or overthrow a modern government is via mass street demonstrations, and strikes. A modern western government can't get away with shooting a peacefully demonstrating populous, and the bigger the demonstrations, the more pressure on the government to change. Ditto with strikes, which impact on the government budget and put pressure on the government from businesses. Any legal limitations on your right to demonstrate or strike is dangerous, and is made out of governmental fear.

So yeah, the only real reason to own a gun in most peaceful modern western developed nations is for leisure, sport, historical, or back-to-nature reasons.

Not a big fan of the "overthrow the government" angle, but:

A) The Viet Cong sure seemed to be able to hold their own versus a better-equipped enemy
B) The entire military isn't going to available since there will obviously be defectors at a time like that
C) What country is going to nuke its own infrastructure?
D) Tell me how well demonstrations are working for Iran

In Aus, if you are assaulted or killed, the chances are 98% that it will be by a family member, or someone that is known to you. In which case, it doesn't matter what neighbourhood you live in, or what race or class you belong to. People skills, emotional skills, family support, social services, whatever education and support it takes to make individuals know how to make functional families and functional peer interactions, that's what crime prevention is about.

Yes you have to take individual responsibility. But you have to be modelled good behaviour and taught good social skills as a child, so you can enforce your boundaries, support other people, and politely get what you need, without blowing up on other people. If your parent fall down on that modelling and skill teaching, you need to get it elsewhere. If you cross the legal line, you need to take the full consequences of your actions, including jail time if that's appropriate.

But with 90% of jail inmates diagnosed with mental illnesses, I think there's room to improve medical services to the mentally ill, to intervene before things get that bad for them. And for gad's sake legalise and medicalise most drugs. 60% of Australian jail inmates are in there on drugs offences. It's a waste of money and lives.

Edited, Mar 29th 2010 5:53pm by Aripyanfar

Just for you Totes