Peace.

And this is EXACTLY what I mean by trying to bully those of us who do not support their right to be bullies.

Most of the year, that is..... We value having escaped the Second Amendment and US Health Care..
Unfortunately while in the US , the experience we have with the paranoia one feels that if today , I don't have the legal right to kill someone I might not survive does not endear us to US life. Gun love , except for maybe the need to kill stray rattlesnakes is a paranoia. But then since the US is becoming ever more third world by each passing day, maybe the paranoia is deserved.
Guns.. I've hated them since I was a kid.. Not sure why I turned against the violence Shown by TV westerns to kids, but I surely did.. Been that way ever since, too late to change now..

this has not happened via evolution. Organizations with an agenda (read NRA, gun manufacturers) are promoting this fear and paranoia. And it is working.

fear and paranoia so widespread. Yep, it's fear and paranoia stoked for profit. Also, the hate radio/media droning on about 'they're coming to get your guns' really sounds like the ravings of really unstable individuals after awhile.

Or are you trying to have a conversation.

and I've lived in DC ('home' of Heller v. DC,) Chicago, Aurora, CO, and Oxford, OH. Lived in Brooklyn, NY, as a child.

I also taught the sport of riflery as a 'jr counselor' at a summer camp in Pennsylvania. No 'necessity' there.

Went with him a couple times. It was fun, but not a hobby I've ever considered taking up.

Since I have been teaching, I've seen way too many kids killed or seriously injured with guns. One of my formers just died a week ago. That puts a damper on the whole gun thing for me.

Paper, exclusively.
So sorry that you knew some 'victims.'

Never in my life.

Hard to relate.

Please do not try to prevent me from exercising my rights under the second amendment.

Bullies, they are everywhere. JUST because I don't need a gum you feel threatened??


So sad for you, so weak.

Plenty of democrats and progressives own and carry firearms.

Stop eating your own.

Molon labe.

It's a lot like politics where the extremes are never listened to because rational people are to busy looking for workable solutions.

Before you can post anything online, I want a background check.

How do you like them apples?

Plus between sixty and seventy million dead as direct and indirect results of the war.

And in truth it wasn't Mein kampf - if words killed, it'd still be taking lives - it was the fact that the author of that book took power in his country and remilitarized it.

Could you first name the number of victims that have been killed by unlimited access to the first amendment before your next post. Also, talking about apples, comparing them to oranges is usually not a tactic employed in a winning argument.

And we'd appreciate your not trying to interfere with THAT right.

Don't act like I don't have the right to demand sensible measures that might make a dent in all the lunatic gun violence going on around me. I have lived in the inner city, old declining suburbs, and still spend plenty of time in those places. Never felt the need to carry a gun. I worry more when I visit my boyhood hometown of 17,000 and see NRA stickers, gun racks, confederate flags and other bullshit like that. I see them as really insecure people, on edge over nothing in a crappy little rust belt town. I think I am right too.

My neighborhood cats are pumas, the smaller critters are rattlesnakes. You don't leave food waste or domestic animals outside or they are food for the locals. Its the twigs and I live alone here in the desert. Its a raw beauty I enjoy, especially now that the infestation of campers and OHV riders has subsided.

I am well into my last quarter, probably my last tenth. My focus today is teaching. College during the week, and on some weekends I teach a handgun class mostly for women and GLBTQ people. They are the ones most often bullied and are often the least prepared to defend themselves. Fees for the class consist of participating in the pot luck and helping clean up afterwards. Many students have said that it has changed their lives for the better. I consider it partial payment for the good has been done for me over the years.

Perfectly understandable.

I have no desire to take any guns away from responsible gun owners. But I don't understand why anyone needs a weapon like that guy in CO had that he used to shoot 70 people.

If you are not a threat to society, it really does not matter how many guns or rounds of ammunition you own. If you are crackers, you should not have any.

I used to get RVers parking in what amounts to my front yard. They would let Rover stay outside the camper and in the morning he would be gone, having been dinner for a big cat or coyote. I've posted about it previously.

He had a shotgun, two pistols, and the AR style rifle. I have read that the rifle jammed at some point. Waiting to get better data on what actually happened.

As for need, that simply is irrelevant. For example: You don't need a 1TB disc and you are probably going to do bad things with it anyway.

They have tanks and gunships. You would lose.

And Red Dawn was just a mediocre movie.

doesn't absolutely cause fits.

Our military is built to deal damage not hold and occupy and police are heavily dependent on popular suffrage.

I also believe a population that is no match for it's own forces is under equipped. You can balance that how ever you want. Tamp down the military and police, allowing for a less dangerously equipped population or flip it around and have private ownership of anti-air craft and anti-armor weaponry and Korean War to Viet Nam era aircraft. However, you'd like to balance that works for me but I am ideological and philosophically devoted to the balance so ignoring it isn't something I am ever going to be inclined to accept enough not to oppose actively.

there is anything approaching wide proliferation. All balance is lost when few possess or control too much power.

Obviously, the point is not to make sure the wealthiest have access, they already do. Who do you think can plunk down the 10k+ for an automatic weapons permit or buy a Viet Nam era Mig? The wealthy aren't excluded from anything, I would only make it easier for the "small people" and dilute the accumulation of power.

I don't do unchecked power or absolute trust. History is full of military coups, they go on strong to this day. It is a great blessing that we have maintained a decent level of civilian control of the military (though it can seem dicey and much has been maintained by appeasement and tons of ca$h) but as presently constituted betting the house on the concept. Maybe a part of the success of our arrangement has been deterrence and remains such.

300 million any of which poses a potential threat to personnel on the ground and a significant one at that which makes occupation and control without popular sufferance and/or the aide of internal power centers all but impossible. Particularly over the land mass, terrain, and the cities.

Concentration of power is always to be avoided, if at all possible. Always.There is little supporting history for any other outlook.

They're doing it in Afghanistan because we're not willing to slaughter entire civilian population centers to terrorize them into submission. That would not be the case if a military regime were hell bent on taking over the United States. After a couple cities get nuked, people would simply lay down their arms and accept military control. There's a certain point at which people just aren't willing to fight.

I get what you're saying that concentrated power is to be avoided if possible. The framers didn't envision a permanent standing military. Nor did they envision that we'd spend more on it than most of the rest of the world combined, and they certainly didn't envision stealth bombers and nuclear weapons. But the fact is that in the Post World War II era, that's what we have and it's not going away any time soon. No amount of pistols and semi-automatic rifles dispersed among the population are going to act as a real check on that.

I am home alone a lot. One of my good friends who lives near me was shot in his own home after he came home from word and surprised a burglar. Two days ago the convenience store a block from me was robbed. These are just two examples. I am glad your fists are all you have needed. I don't have that advantage and I am armed. It makes good sense in my situation. YMMV

I can relate..

Essentially...we don't need guns.

I see that the NRA has cultivated a "cowboy" following and they think they need a gun...well not just one but lots and lots of guns. It has evolved into a cult following, a trend or what's cool these days. I hope this changes in the near future.

and have NEVER encountered any situation that would have required a gun, or that would have been improved by having a gun. Never. Not once.

In a nearby neighborhood there is one house, just one out of thousands, that is surrounded by high chain link with razor wire on the top. There are security cameras inside the "compound". I'm sure this guy feels like he is safer than his neighbors, but the reality is that he's just more paranoid than his neighbors. I'm sure he believes with all his heart that a gun is necessary for his security. I'm sure he's crazy.

A couple years back when I lived in that neighborhood I often went to sleep on a hot evening with my windows wide open, and I once made a two-week out-of-state trip and left my front door unlocked the whole time I was gone. Do I need barbed wire and a gun? The day I start believing I need a gun is the day I will know that I have freaking lost my mind!

I never, ever needed a gun for protection.

5"1, 100 lb woman. Never needed a gun and went all around NYC at all hours of the day and night. I now live in Florida, Land of Gun, in a town where the median age is 65. If I didn't need it back when, I need it now against some Grandpa looking to get me?

That seems like an extreme way to deal with security if you do not live in a high crime area. Living next to such a house would make me a little paranoid. I would alway wonder what they are hiding.

...and have NEVER once needed seat belts! Or a fire extinguisher! Or a smoke alarm! Or the life preservers on my boat! So those things must not be needed by anyone! (YMMV)

do not put other people's lives in danger just by being present.

Those things you mention, unlike guns, are NOT specifically engineered to kill, but rather to save lives.

When those things you mention are put to use they save lives. When guns are put to use they take lives.

no ones ever saved anyones live with a gun?

I'd say that nullifies your argument...

But my friendly neighborhood pest control guy took care of them.

that you've never been subjected to someone trying to break into your home. Some of us have experienced that first hand and that time between when you call the police and they arrive seems like hours if you're defenseless. Also, recently military history would disagree with your assertion about the military. Our founders were wisely fond of the idea of checks on power and that is was the 2nd amendment provides. The government is a great tool for accomplishing collective tasks, such as health care, but isn't some angelic entity.

you have the talking points down pat.


The government has planes and tanks, what do you have strong guy?

recent military history. You've provided nothing but baseless snark in reply.

I'm trying to have a real discussion. I'm decidedly liberal so trying to lump me in with Sharron Angel supporters isn't going to work.

I have no interest in discussing second amendment remedies with you or anyone who thinks like you. If you think the reason you need a gun is because some day you may need to be a soldier in the 2nd Revolutionary war, I do not want to know you or discuss anything with you.

Goodbye.

the current government. With fundamental rights you need to take the long view. Your kids, grandkids, etc. You have no idea what type of environment they'll be raised in or what the governance they'll be subjected to.

I vote for reasonable.

and yet here we are what 10 years down the road and we're still fighting a bunch of stone age goat herders who don't have planes and tanks yet they seem to be doing all right.

Insurrections are actually rather simple to put down when you have drastically superior force. You simply find whatever villages or towns are sheltering the rebels and you bomb them back to the stone age. Pretty soon, the rebels have nowhere to go and the people will be way too afraid to actually help them. The reason that the goat herders have a chance, is that we're not willing to terrorize the civilian population into compliance and slaughter those who don't comply.

However, if a tyrannical regime's hold on power was threatened, you can bet they wouldn't use such restraint. For a more realistic idea of how this would turn out, look at what Assad is willing to do to hold power in Syria. Now imagine if he had the US military at his disposal. The insurrection would've been put down in 5 minutes.

Imagine the resistance if his populace had been as well armed as we are. It's a numbers game.

I'm sure all of us well armed Rambos would do well against smart bombs, bunker busters, tanks, etc. the days of a bunch of pissed off peasants threatening with long rifles are over dude.

I only have to point to military history (even recent military history if you like). You are quite wrong. The idea behind the 2nd amendment isn't "beating" the military. It's to use the threat of making the country ungovernable if the government should decide to go down that road, which if very doable. Nothing to do with Rambo.

Know, that many down here believe that with enough arms they can march on Washington.

guns, make people crazy.

I don't desire to overthrow the government. As to the fantasy point, what's the first thing we sent into the revolutions in the middle east.

-Hint, it was arms
-I thought you weren't talking to me

Like I said, you end a resistance by bombing entire population centers into the ground. It doesn't matter if 10% of them have guns, 50% of them have guns, or 90% of them have guns. When the bombing is over, they'll all be dead.

extermination isn't typically the goal, they want to control the populace of an area. As for resistance after being carpet bombed, well just look at the Germans in WWII. Not to sound trite but you seem to think history started when you started paying attention to it.

But actually by the end of the war, it was good enough to get the job done.

The Japanese refused to surrender, we leveled a city. Then they wanted terms for surrender, we leveled another one. Before you know it, we were occupying the country without having to fire a single shot.

They sure can recite the second amendment verbatim and apply it to every facet of modern life.


Next they'll want lase cannons.

right, I'll note that they are 'fellow' Dems.

does that include spraying poisons like agent orange on innocent civilians. The remarkable restraint we failed to show in the events that led up to the death of Allende, an elected socialist leader of Chile.

Since when is it considered a virtue to show restraint and not bomb the shit out of countries that do not pose a threat to our safety.

I think we need to get the fuck out of there yesterday. I'm simply stating that we're not slaughtering entire civilian populations for the sheer purpose of terrorizing others into submission. I'm also not saying we haven't done this in the past. We did it quite a bit in World War II actually.

wow I guess you worry when someone doesn't think like you....

dosent mean that some people dont want or need them, same as guns. You might never have needed one but a lot of people live miles from anywhere and do do things like hunt.

Jesus Christ.

dosent mean some people dont need either it depends on the personal circumstance.

Where I live, I have never once considered needing a gun for any reason

why does my personal observation trouble you so much?

you wrote you dont need a gun, i say good on you im not going to buy you one anyway, I wrote i dont need a sportscar but a gun is handy in my circumstances. Not to sure why you have a problem with seeing how our circumstances are different.

and in the hands of too many people (for various reasons) who have no business carrying a water pistol, never mind all the high tech models available.

They scare the crap out of me and I would never own one. I've never been in a situation where I wished I had one and hope I never am. The terror and PTSD that the survivors must be feeling in Aurora is unimaginable along with the deaths of too many innocents. People with guns are the ones who kill people.

You mean like a movie theater at midnight?

You really need to think your replies out before you write them. And you're insulting to the memories of the dead.

before Friday night I wouldn't have thought of a midnight movie as a place where one might need a gun. Apparently I was wrong.

Before June of 1997 I would have never thought that the street outside my house would be a place where I might need a gun. wrong again.

Luckily I had a gun and as a result neither I nor the would be mugger was hurt.

Jesus what the fuck is wrong when you try to change my fucking viewpoint. I DON'T NEED A DFUCKING GUN GET OVER IT. You people are like rabid Fundies, if everyone doesn't own a gun or think like you do, we have to be lectured as to why God forbid someday we may need a gun, why even when I go to the nursing home.


Jesus give up.

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF YOU DON'T THINK YOU NEED A GUN I'D LIKE THE OPTION OF OWNIN ONE> FUCKING GET OVER IT.

Does my post look cooler because I used all caps?

You have never needed a gun, I'm cool with that but does that mean that you think I shouldn't have the option of having one?

I'm not trying to be a smart ass I really am asking

butting in... I 'listen' in amazement to conversations of late and the passions are real but mystifying to me... DainB... never stated he thought people shouldn't have guns... he said "..no need for dozens of guns and thousands of round of ammo..." and that he personally didn't feel a need to have one...

I travel throughout the United States for work and it often takes me into some rough neighborhoods where I have to walk and inspect property... I have never felt the need for a gun... we are a very diverse group of people here in the U.S. with diverse experiences

I see a crucial need to discuss this topic calmly without the irrational passion that follows it... very appreciative of your serious question

were both stolen by my drug addict brother.

Never been robbed by anyone else, never needed a gun for any reason.

I have used profanity some, though.

And you're right, since I turned 60 back a ways, my doc wants to talk fiber, not STDS.

Sigh.

Merry Christmas.

and I live in Long Beach. I've never owned a gun, never fired a gun, never picked up a handgun, don't have friends that profess to have guns, and never been a situation where a gun might have been useful in any way.

got guns, in fact im in the middle of a war with the local groundhogs destroying my food crops, my neighbours all have guns and probuably use my rifle most days to either hunt or kill varmints. different courses for different horses, and all that.

Regardless of the now, my .45 got pulled and I defended my wife.

It was some time ago. And he was a minor, I think. And yes, I'd have blown his fucking head off. Don't seek to step into the shoes of a statistic.

Don't care his age or anything else. I defend my family. I'd have made him a statistic and mourners of his loved ones, unfortunately.

Hope you and yours are well....

But I would appreciate you leaving my rights alone so I can protect my family - as I see fit.
Not as you see fit.

Paranoid much?

Suggesting I donate to helping the poor instead of buying a gun.
And be honest, your post is dripping with anti-gun rhetoric that is a hopeful gun-ban waiting to happen.
Look, the post just isn't based in reality. Use fists - really?
There are people in my city that would define you as easy-target.
They don't care what you bring to a fight as long as it isn't a gun - THAT they understand.

I can't pick up the paper without reading about another home invasion around here.
Now, unless you and your magical bullet-stopping fists can be here to protect me, - please allow me to buy my weapons without 'suggesting' I help the poor instead.

what a terribly pat answer, I have actually read parts of that somewhere and I bet if I put it in the plagiarize machine I'll find it.


I said what I said, and to fucking bad if you don't think I have the right NOT to own a gun.

and show us the results.

Proof or retraction. Or do you still not care about credibility?

(and statistics) to believe that if the money that was spent on guns, was instead used to help struggling communities and people, possibly home invasions would stop, violence could be lessened??

The OP was not unreasonable in his statements

economic instability contributes significantly to acts of violence

"...Public health studies have identified risk factors that increase the likelihood of youth violence in communities. But they also have found protective factors that help prevent teens from picking committing violence in the first place, Davis said.

"The kinds of things that put communities at risk, are: poverty and economic disparity, community deterioration, a lack of opportunities for young people, truancy, illiteracy and a failing school system, alcohol and other drugs and the availability of weapons," she says..."

At least, he claimed to be a fellow from Israel, it was online, and you know how people can do behind the anonymity of a discussion board.

Anyway, he claimed that he moved his family from Brooklyn, NY to Sderot, just east of Gaza. Apparently he knew that Sderot was a frequent target for rocket attacks from Gaza before making this move. Well, when 2008 came and with it the war between Israel and Gaza, he was yelling about how much danger he and his family were in because of Hamas. While he wasn't incorrect... I couldn't help but point out that he's the one who knowingly and intentionally put his wife and children in harm's way to start with. There aren't many rocket attacks in Brooklyn, at least that I'm aware of.

So my question to you is... Why are you persisting in keeping your family in some terrible place that necessitates being constantly armed? Where do you live, anyway? Chechnya? North Cyprus? Waziristan? the Colombia-Panama border?

...except that one from Labrador...

No gun, no protein on the plate during the winter. Subsistence in Alaska.

You notice a profound difference between people who need guns, and people who want guns. Up where I was, nobody got on their computers to jabber at each other about their weapons. There were no get-togethers at the range to wife-swap, er, rifle-swap. A gun was simply a tool used to kill an animal that you planned to carve up into bite-sized chunks, or occasionally, a tool you used to keep an animal from eating you (though in truth, a can of pepper spray was a better investment for that; No F&G paperwork to fill out)

On the other hand down here in the 48... A gun isn't a tool anymore, at least it's not a functional one. oh, it shoots, but the function of sending a bullet from the barrel isn't really the point anymore. It's about power fetishization. So you find these people who are parading around their weapons, posing with them, filling up walls and taking pictures to use as Christmas cards, arguing the "stopping power" of minutely different ammunition, and of course insisting that they are the champions of freedom and liberty because guns. Above all, it's about preening yourself over the fact you have the power to kill someone if you so desire.

Where I come from, a gun is basically a snow shovel that needs oiling. You use it for its job, and that's what it does, end of story. Down south? it's a fucking cult object, and I find it very fucking weird.

I agree with you, that if you live in certain places, a gun is a necessary tool just like a hammer, a screwdriver, or a saw. The problem is that they'd sell a lot less guns if people treated them that way. Sure maybe every decade or so, you'll go buy a shiny new hammer or saw. But nobody owns 20 of them.

I'm sure the arms manufacturers don't mind the fetishization of their product, and aren't going to discourage it... but frankly their big bucks come from government contracts, the private consumer is something of a sideshow.

The problem is just that so many people have a deep need to feel "powerful" some way or another.

I have numerous hammers and each is designed to be used for a different job. I have at least three ballpeen hammers, probably three claw hammers (depending on whether I’m framing or doing finish work), a tack hammer, a masonry hammer, several different length and weight sledge hammers, a sheet-metal hammer (don’t know the proper name, but it’s used to shape sheet metal), rubber and lead mallets, a pick hammer (for digging), and a splitting maul. Then there’s the nail guns and pneumatic hammers.

When it comes to saws, there’s a radial arm saw, and a table saw. A small miter box, and a large compound miter box (if I need a scroll saw, band saw, or power hacksaw I visit one of my neighbors.) I have hand hacksaws, numerous different length and toothed wood saws, a coping saw, a couple of circular saws, a saber saw, an abrasive cutoff saw, and two chainsaws.

I’m sure that I have others, but I’m too lazy to go out to the barn and look.

When it comes to shotguns it’s the same story. An over-under skeet gun, and a single barreled trap gun. A longer barreled, tight choked pump gun for duck and geese and a shorter barreled looser choked autoloader for dove and quail. A gun with rifle sights for deer hunting and a short-barrel, long magazine one for home defense.

It’s simply a matter of the proper tool for the job.

...in their daily lives, and so fantasies of power ooze into their daydreams and fantasies.