Speaking of the gun control debate...

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Last night, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show had a HUGE segment of the show dedicated to the current debate in the country on gun control. I urge EVERYONE to watch this.

The heart of the segment is the point made so often by the NRA's minions about how the government needs to be enforcing existing gun control laws, rather than creating new ones. The point being that over the past decade, the NRA has been working tirelessly to make all those laws as toothless as possible, forbidding the BATF from creating any database tracking gun sales, keeping the bureau's staff leaderless, and funded at the same level it has been for the past 30 years... basically making the gun industry as anarchic as most NRA spokesmen act.

One wonders whether just fixing THOSE problems might not have a huge impact on the gun problems we face today. Of course, allowing a permanent director to the agency to be confirmed for the first time in 6 years, funding an increase in personnel, giving the agency real tools and power to ENFORCE THE LAWS -- all that would cost money. But really, isn't America worth a little extra in this area? Wouldn't it be wonderful, even from the NRA's standpoint, if the government was actually able to do THE THING THEY SAY SHOULD BE DONE??

[Liv]

I personally say leave them legal, and make gun manufacturers 100% liable for the damage done with them.

What's the current value of a human life? 9.1 Mil?

Every time someone dies, bill the gun maker and the shooter 9.1 million.

[Liv]

Problem solved.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Seems to me that there will soon be a lot of money to be made in the fashion industry because of all this rubbish. Millions of Americans will INSIST on keeping access to all the guns of every type imaginable, because they think guns will protect them.

Of course, that is completely illogical, as evidenced by the killing of a Nave SEAL while at a shooting range and the murder of a Texas prosecutor, killed in spite of having the "protection" of a gun at his side.

No, what the people of America will eventually get around to demanding is bullet-proof body armor and helmets to wear full time when they go out day or night. And if they are going to wear body armor, I expect they will demand that it look "stylish" In 20 years, the "new normal" -- particularly in big cities with massive gang problems -- will be QUITE interesting to see. All because the NRA and their followers can't BEAR the thought that the government ought to limit people's access to hand-held killing machines.

[bigd]

you people need to understand one thing...the second amendment ( know what that is ???? )..says it is a RIGHT to bear arms....look at chicago where hand guns are banned....geee..one of the highest crime and deaths due to handguns....Wanna know why??? because the bad guys know that its illegal to own a firearm...YOUR LIBERAL HEADS ARE SO FULL OF MUSH YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND.....HITLER TOOK ALL THE WEAPONS FROM PEOPLE...Stalin...Castro...Remember an armed society is a POLITE society....

[Liv]

Actually that's quite incorrect. It was the soldiers who had came home from WWI and who had their firearms in their closet that fueled the Freikorp, and eventually led to the re-arming of Germany.

That said, most of the constitution needs to be retooled, and at the center of it is the 2nd Amendment.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

you people need to understand one thing...the second amendment ( know what that is ???? )..says it is a RIGHT to bear arms.

The Second Amendment says that the right to bear arms is linked to the need for a well-regulated militia. I see very little evidence of gun owners being well-regulated in ANY sense of the word. In fact, an awful lot of the ones I see and hear from are rude, antagonistic, borderline anarchist and seem to be living in a world steeped in paranoia.

Seems to me that this is a less-than-optimal situation, regardless of the legalities involved.

Just sayin...

[A Person]

you people need to understand one thing...the second amendment ( know what that is ???? )..says it is a RIGHT to bear arms...".

Well yes I do. which bit of 'well regulated' did you miss? You don't have a 'right' to nuclear weapons, grenades, fully automatic assault rifles, since your right to bear arms is tempered by other people's right to life and liberty. The question is, where d we draw the line?

look at chicago where hand guns are banned....geee..one of the highest crime and deaths due to handguns....Wanna know why??? because the bad guys know that its illegal to own a firearm...

You are suggesting that there's a correlation between gun restrictions and violence? There is but it's the reverse. If you look at all the states you find the following correlations: (WARNING Data & facts have a liberal bias)

Gun deaths go up in Republican states, less educated and poor states (but I repeat myself) and where guns are allowed in schools. And go down n Democrat states, well educated states and states with regulations like assault weapons bans, trigger locks and safe storage regulations.

Wanna know why??? No? I didn't think so.

YOUR LIBERAL HEADS ARE SO FULL OF MUSH YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND.....HITLER TOOK ALL THE WEAPONS FROM PEOPLE...Stalin...Castro...

No he didn't. Hitler RELAXED gun controls

German firearms legislation under Hitler, far from banning private ownership, actually facilitated the keeping and bearing of arms by German citizens by eliminating or ameliorating restrictive laws which had been enacted by the government preceding his: a left-center government which had contained a number of Jews. Source

Remember an armed society is a POLITE society....

No, you And maybe travel to some other countries. To suggest that Americans are more polite than Canadians, Japanese, British, Swedish is laughable. Somalia and Afghanistan are highly armed, but not renowned for politeness.

The USA is an outlier for violence among civilized nations. Is a violent society not a polite one - as your so very polite post clearly illustrates

America is a fearful society. Afraid of its neighbors, afraid for the future, afraid of losing their jobs and afraid they might get sick. Fearful people with little to lose are violent.

[A Person]

Speaking of the gun control debate...

Remember how arming teachers and putting armed cops in schools is going to make them safer?

Officer Sean McCutcheon, a school resource officer for Highland Central School District, “accidentally discharged” his gun in the hallway of the high school at 1:38 p.m. Tuesday, the school district and police said.

Yeah - a trained police officer. Now imagine al the teachers armed - and students too if the NRA has its way.

And in other ironic news ...

WHITEFISH - Police in Whitefish say that Gregory Rodriguez of Texas was shot and killed as he was visiting a Whitefish woman during a business trip to northwest Montana late Thursday night.

The case is still being investigated, but police know that Rodriguez, known as a television personality on an outdoors TV program, was visiting a woman who was staying at her mother's house at River Lakes Parkway in Whitefish.

Police say that at around 10:30 p.m. the woman's husband, Wayne Bengston, came to the house and then shot Rodriguez and brutally beat his wife.
...
Authorities say they attempted to contact Bengston with no success, and when they entered his house they found Bengston dead of a gunshot wound to the head.

The victim was the host of The Sportsman Channel’s “A Rifleman’s Journal”. He not only hosted his own hunting show, he was also an editor of Shooting Times and wrote for Guns & Ammo magazine -and the CEO of Global Adventure Outfitters, a hunting supply store

If only he'd been armed ...

[Liv]

You nailed it on the head with the fear.

This has been the center of almost everything I've found to be true of America in the last few years.

From traveling, to marketing and purchases, to the way people live their lives in America... we are a country of fear.

We're enslaved by that fear.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

you people need to understand one thing...the second amendment ( know what that is ???? )..says it is a RIGHT to bear arms...".

Well yes I do. which bit of 'well regulated' did you miss?

All of it, I'd guess. He didn't strike me as the sort of person who was much interested in facts, so much as repeating slogans that make him feel good. Since he seems so interested in Hitler's role in gun history, I'd like to point out that his penchant for repeating fact-free slogans is pretty much the same mind-set that HIS followers used in giving him the powers HE had.

I point that out merely as food for POSSIBLE thought on his part. I would hope he'd feel an urge to learn the facts of the matter on his own, but hope is a rather cheap commodity these days.

[Liv]

So this made me think about the relationship of education levels and gun ownership.

Not a whole lot out there on the web with a quick Google, but I did come up with this. Some of it obvious, some of it not.

Gun owners are white middle income 45-65 year old Republicans who attend church only occasionally (rather than regularly), and who have no or some college.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

Bet that's not very far removed from our erstwhile troll...

[Liv]

Must have small genitals and illusions of grandeur in most cases too.

[A Person]

Delusions of adequacy I think you mean.

But seriously this:

Gun owners are white middle income 45-65 year old Republicans who attend church only occasionally (rather than regularly), and who have no or some college.

is an unjustifiable generalisation. It's no more valid than it would be to say that "Blacks are violent, drug-peddling convicts"

There is correlation but a correlation simply means that they're more likely not that they are

[Liv]

You are what you eat.

Wait, I don't suppose that works here, or maybe it does?

[A Person]

You are what you eat.

Only in the sense of the mineral and chemical content of your diet - and excluding that which you excrete.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

You are what you eat.

Only in the sense of the mineral and chemical content of your diet - and excluding that which you excrete.

Feeling a bit pedantic today?

[A Person]

Honestly officer, he said he was 18.

Oh sorry, you said pedantic.

Well that cliché has always annoyed me. It's invariably uttered as if its deeply meaningful, yet it's banal.

But I suppose I am a little testy today. My company is acquiring an operation in the States that's putting me under a lot of pressure. Plus I'm selling my house ad buying another 2000 miles away

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

I'm testy as well. My son's marriage is on the rocks, I'm still without a permanent job, and for our final Cisco class today, we were promised a visit from some recruiters that deal with network engineers -- they FORGOT THE APPOINTMENT!!

Creeps. All this work, and I'm no closer to having a career than I was this time last year.

[Liv]

I'll join in...

I think I've discovered Hell, and that I'm living in it. I'm genuinely void of caring anymore why Americans are the way they are... and am so home-sick for abroad, I fantasize about crawling up into the wheel-well of a jumbo jet, with a can of crisps and hoping my frozen body falls out of the sky somewhere where they can bring me back to life and I have amnesia.

[Liv]

Perspective.