27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[orpheus]

The price of the freedom to own machines which fire little pellets of alloy so fast they can kill people is that you tolerate those little pellets killing people at a level most of the world finds breathtakingly puzzling and staggeringly stupid.

However I doubt that this blind spot in your national psyche is going to change much at all in the near future.

Fools.

Do you think freedom came free? No one gave their life for the liberty you enjoy and take for granted today?

Nobody thinks that at all. But many of us think the 2nd Amendment is on the verge of being obsolete. The 18th amendment was ratified and later proved to be a shitty idea. People have more of an attachment to the 2nd one for various reasons, many of which I can understand. But that doesn't mean it hasn't outlived most of its usefulness, or that it's not being horribly misinterpreted nowadays.

Now that we have freedoms we can relax as we can't lose them again because we can trust our government and other voters to be sensible and altruistic and sympathetic and unselfish and full of brotherly love and our neighbors to not covet what we have and want to take it by force.

Let's take those one by one:

Government - you honestly think owning a gun - or guns - will help in a pitched battle against the government and its resources? How about that drone above you, or that tank coming down your street?

other voters - so you're willing to use your gun against fellow citizens who vote in a way you don't like? I trust that's not what you mean here, because I know you're more intelligent than that, but I can't for the life of me figure out what else you might mean.

[trusting] our neighbors to not covet what we have and want to take it by force - robbery justifies taking a human life, does it? I guess we have different values.

[Ian]

I'd like to know exactly which well-regulated militias Gallstones and Seth belong to. Or what they think of their roles in the security of the State.

I wonder sometimes if you guys have actually read the amendment.

[Gallstones]

So, if you had to kill something, what would you prefer to use?

I would prefer not to kill something. Except bugs, but I stomp on them.

I don't like killing either, but the deed needs to be done and you can't stomp a horse to death.
BTW, I don't kill bugs or spiders et al unless there is a need. I otherwise leave them be because I'm not blood thirsty and irreverent towards other life forms as a matter of course.

I wouldn't want to shot a horse to death either. If it needs put down, I'm sure there are drugs for that.
Yes, I'm a blood thirsty spider stomper!

Yes there are drugs.

So in your compassionate opinion it is better to wait out the fetching of a vet, allowing the horse to struggle and be in pain and panic, just so it's last moments are to experience being forcibly restrained, and be stabbed in the jugular for an injectable euthansia--that takes several minutes to have effect, rather than end it's misery in seconds by shooting it in the head because the latter is aesthetically or emotionally icky?

[Gallstones]

I'd like to know exactly which well-regulated militias Gallstones and Seth belong to.

You don't have to be in a militia in the present moment.
The militia is latent until needed.
It is the Right of the people to be ready to be able to respond and function as a militia.

I could be National Guard or Reserve.
As a veteran I could be conscripted as National Guard or Reserve if needed.

[orpheus]

the last time the Democrats tried that they lost their asses in Congress and the White House.

That appears to be correct. One of the items I read mentioned the difficulty of changing gun laws, despite that being the wish of the majority. It appears that gun nutters are prepared to base their vote entirely on the gun issue, while saner voters base their vote on a wider range of issues. Gun owners represent only 30% of Americans, but that 30% are sufficient to sway the vote, when they are so strongly focused on gun issues, while the other 70% are more concerned about things like the economy, health care, unemployment etc.

The ironic thing here (or one, at least, as there are several) is that in their desperate fervor to keep their weapons, the gun proponents of the 30% will vote against better/affordable/accessible health care - all the while arguing that the real problems are mentally unstable people; not the guns they use.

[Gallstones]

Do you think freedom came free? No one gave their life for the liberty you enjoy and take for granted today?

The problem with that suggestion is that Americans are not free. They are less free than peoples in the other 23 richest nations, which do not have the so-called "right" to bear arms.

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that people should have the right to good medical care, a living, and education. In the USA these are not rights. They are freely available to the wealthier people and denied to the poor. The USA is not a free country. If you dispute this, go and ask a poor person.

I am a poor person.

Not too poor. You're on the Internet and you buy guns. You must have a bit of cash flow.

I have a job.
And how I increase my income to buy things I normally can't is not something you are entitled to know. But it is something that I can do if I choose, earn extra money for extra things--the old fashioned, and completely ordinary way. And when I do that I can spend that money on whatever I please.

[Ian]

I'd like to know exactly which well-regulated militias Gallstones and Seth belong to.

You don't have to be in a militia in the present moment.
The militia is latent until needed.
It is the Right of the people to be ready to be able to respond and function as a militia.

I could be National Guard or Reserve.
As a veteran I could be conscripted as National Guard or Reserve if needed.

And what would they think of you showing up for duty with your personal sidearm?

Excuses excuses. We can go 'round all day on this. You're using a very effective interpretation of the amendment for the 18th century. We're living in the 21st.

[Gallstones]

I'd like to know exactly which well-regulated militias Gallstones and Seth belong to.

You don't have to be in a militia in the present moment.
The militia is latent until needed.
It is the Right of the people to be ready to be able to respond and function as a militia.

I could be National Guard or Reserve.
As a veteran I could be conscripted as National Guard or Reserve if needed.

And what would they think of you showing up for duty with your personal sidearm?

Excuses excuses. We can go 'round all day on this. You're using a very effective interpretation of the amendment for the 18th century. We're living in the 21st.

How do you justify the handgun you own, not being militia and all?

[Ian]

10361_10151182016911275_2083762836_n.jpg (22.74 KiB) Viewed 533 times

[orpheus]

So, if you had to kill something, what would you prefer to use?

I would prefer not to kill something. Except bugs, but I stomp on them.

I don't like killing either, but the deed needs to be done and you can't stomp a horse to death.
BTW, I don't kill bugs or spiders et al unless there is a need. I otherwise leave them be because I'm not blood thirsty and irreverent towards other life forms as a matter of course.

I wouldn't want to shot a horse to death either. If it needs put down, I'm sure there are drugs for that.
Yes, I'm a blood thirsty spider stomper!

Yes there are drugs.

So in your compassionate opinion it is better to wait out the fetching of a vet, allowing the horse to struggle and be in pain and panic, just so it's last moments are to experience being forcibly restrained, and be stabbed in the jugular for an injectable euthansia--that takes several minutes to have effect, rather than end it's misery in seconds by shooting it in the head because the latter is aesthetically or emotionally icky?

You're looking at the status quo. But that could be changed. Why not require those who keep horses to be trained in injectible euthanasia and to keep the tools on hand and readily accessible? This could include a tranquilizer gun which would obviate the need for restraining the animal.

And even were it to be absolutely necessary to have a traditional rifle for such a purpose, the right to own guns could be limited to those who have such a need. In no case would an assault weapon be necessary.

[Jason]

Have you never known the pleasure of stroking a gun? Oiling it. Rubbing it. Thrusting your cleaning brush down the barrel rhythmically while the solvent spurts in your face. Getting into all the tight areas so you completely service it. It's a sensual experience. Practically orgasmic.

A lot like waxing your car that you love.

[Jason]

10361_10151182016911275_2083762836_n.jpg

I might say that if the best response you can think of is a poster, then the argument has become too polarised to bother with.

[Gallstones]

The price of the freedom to own machines which fire little pellets of alloy so fast they can kill people is that you tolerate those little pellets killing people at a level most of the world finds breathtakingly puzzling and staggeringly stupid.

However I doubt that this blind spot in your national psyche is going to change much at all in the near future.

Fools.

Do you think freedom came free? No one gave their life for the liberty you enjoy and take for granted today?

Nobody thinks that at all. But many of us think the 2nd Amendment is on the verge of being obsolete. The 18th amendment was ratified and later proved to be a shitty idea. People have more of an attachment to the 2nd one for various reasons, many of which I can understand. But that doesn't mean it hasn't outlived most of its usefulness, or that it's not being horribly misinterpreted nowadays.

Now that we have freedoms we can relax as we can't lose them again because we can trust our government and other voters to be sensible and altruistic and sympathetic and unselfish and full of brotherly love and our neighbors to not covet what we have and want to take it by force.

Let's take those one by one:

Government - you honestly think owning a gun - or guns - will help in a pitched battle against the government and its resources? How about that drone above you, or that tank coming down your street?

other voters - so you're willing to use your gun against fellow citizens who vote in a way you don't like? I trust that's not what you mean here, because I know you're more intelligent than that, but I can't for the life of me figure out what else you might mean.

[trusting] our neighbors to not covet what we have and want to take it by force - robbery justifies taking a human life, does it? I guess we have different values.

OFFS.
I'm not talking to you anymore you are thinking retarded.

[Tero]

Like I said in the Amendment thread, you can have 100 muskets if you like, Gallstones. That's what the amendment gave you:



showing the small gun so you can try to conceal it easily.

[Ian]

How do you justify the handgun you own, not being militia and all?

Pragmatism. I don't want to own the thing. I don't love it, and I don't ever want to even fire it. I bought it because thanks to the NRA and gun-loving paranoid types everywhere, there is a flood of guns per capita in the US, far ahead of any other country. I consider it potential insurance against a home invasion, not insurance of my freedom from the government. If I could be assured that gun ownership in the US was plummeting, I'd be thrilled to get rid of it.

You might think that's hypocrisy. If you do, then suck my ass. It's because of the ubiquity of guns which people like you and Seth not only cherish but perpetuate through your politics that I felt compelled to go out and buy the thing.