No, it isn't. I can go through and give you a blow by blow account with links if you prefer, but I think people can scroll back and see for themselves. Are you suggesting that our actually asking you to clarify your position and explain that statement and what exactly, you meant by that, is false? That we did not do this? Because scrolling back up this page and the previous one saw us repeatedly asking you to clarify your statement. At this point, I am left to wonder if you share accounts, because usually you make a lot of sense. In the last 24 hours, not only are you making little to no sense, but you also being exceptionally personally insulting to various posters and sounding like a bigot. All we asked is that you clarified your that statement or list of suggestions you made. That request was made politely on all fronts. Your response was to abuse and insult us for daring to ask. There is no need to call everyone stupid. That was absolutely uncalled for. I honestly do not understand what your deal is, but it isn't appreciated.
It isn't a militia, for the reasons listed above. It has none of the identifying characteristics of a militia. In particular here, it has nothing to do with "the people" keeping and bearing arms - it is comprised of enlisted soldiers paid, commanded, equipped, trained, and armed, by the State. It's members are subject to the UCMJ when in service or training, which is not voluntary for them. So it's not what the 2nd Amendment was referring to. It's origins in various militias and State military forces - like the origins of the freeway system in various turnpikes - are irrelevant. You could make a better case for something like the Civil Air Patrol, whose membership is voluntary rather than enlisted, largely equips itself, and is not subject to the Universal Code of Military Justice when in service or training. But it's futile anyway - the 2nd Amendment referred to militias as they were known to the writers of it, the common and standard militias of American history. Had they imagined the modern standing army, on the one hand, or the KKK on the other (there's a candidate for billy's notion of meeting and training regularly, and going out for beers afterwards), they might have written differently - but they didn't. So the best I can make out there is that I am supposed to have denigrated the National Guards somehow, and claimed they were unConstitutional or something, or maybe suggested somehow that things not mentioned in the Constitution shouldn't exist, by pointing out that they are not militia - I dunno. These guys are a trip, eh? Never a clue what's going to emerge from those keyboards. You read your post, try to bulletproof it, can't see how the most addled little twit could screw it up - and then they show you. I do prefer. Let's see you try that. Start by finding a quote in which I disparage a study, any study, as you repeatedly claim I did. Yep. It's dishonest. You have no interest in my position, and no interest in the several clarifications or explanations already posted of what you have immovably fastened on in deluded outrage and bizarre mistaken presumption - illustrating my thesis in this matter, across years and threads here: the gun control discussion in the US has been trashed by irrational and untrustworthy extremists on - uniquely in US politics - "both sides". Like this: Which elicited this from you: So there it sits.
btw: This is worthy of exhumation, although not for the reason it was posted (to support the nonsense assertion that only already enlisted members of standing militia forces while in training and service were granted the right to keep and bear arms by the 2nd Amendment). Now the real advantage of Switzerland in WWII was its terrain - on the nice flat expanses of the European lowlands the Swiss militia would have been facing blitzkrieg and Stukas and Panzers and utter defeat - and lack of resources (no oil, no coal). But the principle remains: for defense, decentralized militia have significant advantages, in part because no single command can surrender the country. The invader has to beat them all. That's costly. And so it was that Engels, writing to Marx, was taken by the American prevalence of guns in peasants's hands - the obvious role in creating elbow room, a modicum of liberty in the middle of capitalist oppression, the imposition of costs on those who would oppress via thuggery (as corporations were and are wont) was easily seen by the early communist and anarchist theoreticians; as well as the difficulties that would be faced by invading tyrants. And - no small factor - the difficulties faced by local powers who wished to fight offensive, rather than defensive, wars. When America went down the standing army road, and abandoned reliance on militia for significant military conflict, it changed from defense to offense in its military. And true to Orwellian form, changed the Department of War to the Department of Defense immediately after fighting the last even remotely defensive war in its history. A resurgence of more formal, better organized, more significant militia presence in the US might restore some of that better sense - or not: militia are, after all, rabble. By design. But if it did, it might also corral and curb the police and law enforcement gun violence - deflect our trend toward militarized and violent police forces into an actual locally based military of sorts, and restore the police to law enforcement duties and procedures. There would be nothing preventing black people living in hard cities from joining such a militia - even with felony records or the like, as law enforcement is not on the agenda - for riot control etc, instead of corrupting the police by such duty. Btw: Here's a link for Billy - http://web.archive.org/web/20090106113536/http://www.ctssar.org/articles/connecticuts_militia.htm If you can relax the Swiss model enough to incorporate that, you would have an example of a militia sort of resembling a baby Swiss model, to shoot for in the American tradition.
?? I said that you disparaged the use of the studies that point out the prevalence of gun ownership and gun violence. And you have done it repeatedly. Here you make unfounded assertions as to why people own guns. This was countered with a gallup poll, which saw you go further off the proverbial deep end. As I said, you have made offensive and personally insulting comments because people dared refer to studies about gun violence and gun ownership in the US. Are you now saying that you did not do this? You have repeatedly accused me of misusing studies without any proof whatsoever and without offering anything to counter any of it. Instead, all we got was a vitriolic spray of insults and abuse. When we asked you to clarify your position, you referred to us as stupid because we dared to take your words at face value. I am dishonest? Right.. I would suggest that you untwist that knotted panties you are wearing and read what you have actually written and review how you have conducted yourself. Your position is one posted in absolute confusion, which is why we have repeatedly asked you to please explain what it was you meant. It isn't everyone else who is wrong here, iceaura. You have argued from a position that is steeped in insults that we have to wade through it to try to figure out what you actually meant. You listed recommendations that frankly, make you look racist, hence why we asked you to clarify them. For you to suggest that we did no such thing, when it is clear we did, repeatedly, is ridiculous. The so called "few" you listed above, included things that are steeped in bigotry. As I said before, we are not in your head and can only take your words at face value.
well here is a statistic http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/oct/02/mass-shootings-america-gun-violence
I know what you said. What you promised was evidence, links - so I requested a quote. And for good reason: in every one of those quotes you find me disparaging not "the use" of studies, but the gun control loony misuse and abuse of them and statistics in general. Your use of them, not "the" use of them. You take your confused and polemical take on these innocent compilations of data to be a property of reality. It isn't. I read the studies themselves, and they don't say what you claim and they don't mean what you want them to. For example: It's informative to compare gun violence rates in different Western countries. It's informative to note that the rates in the US are comparatively high. It's accurate to say that the US rate is fifteen times Germany's or whatever it was. But it's not reasonable to conclude from that comparison that the US is in some kind of crisis, "drowning in gun blood". That's not accurate, but more to the point it's not validly supported by those numbers. It's the absolute, not comparative, rate that would support such hyperbole, and it doesn't. Look at the other countries - Switzerland's rate is many times higher than France's or Germany's, is Switzerland "drowning in gun blood" as well? This is bad thinking, poor reasoning - not because it uses studies, but because it's confused and misled. The more likely take, given that America is not awash in gun blood and most Americans are at no significant risk of being shot, is that gun violence and violence generally (to a lesser degree) is admirably rare in France, in Germany, - and in Canada, where there are many guns per capita. We should check out what they are doing. But not because we are drowning in gun blood - our murder rates are dropping too, after all, even as our gun supply grows like Topsy. For example: There's nothing wrong with counting people shot during crimes and people shot in self defense, but if you try to use that to quantify the comparative use of guns for self defense and for criminal acts you are wrong, confused. Shooting people is not how self defense by gun usually works. When guns work well for self defense nobody at all gets shot. In the best self defense by gun - and I have in the past supplied an example, burglary of occupied dwellings (a very serious and dangerous crime, ask any cop) - the crime is never attempted. So you would need, for this, a comparison of the people hurt during burglary of occupied houses in low-gun areas, with those not hurt in the lack of such burglaries in high-gun areas. A statistic comparing occupants shot by house burglars, with burglars shot by house occupants, tells you nothing in itself. For example: None of my assertions were "countered" by the poll. My assertions, however "unfounded" (observation doesn't count?) were in agreement with the poll. I had no quarrel with the poll (or at least mentioned none). But you are, and couple other gun control extremists - which with the wingnuts on the "other side" does in fact destroy the discussion. Like this: No, you misread. Badly. You missed the entire argument, the entire meaning of the post and all subsequent posts, because you were blinkered by arrogant presumption. And so you have posted nothing in five pages that furthers a discussion - that list, read for its meaning, would have made a good springboard for a discussion of, say, which if any of those issues offered opportunity to reduce, specifically, school massacres by gun. My initial vote would be the issue of mental health treatment - from the list - which could be combined by us gun violence reducers with background check improvements, from the earlier note on what little of gun control looked feasible in the current dysfunction. But discussion requires good faith reading and comprehension of posts. With gun control, never gonna happen. Since page one of this thread: The loonies are set up to battle the wingnuts on gun control. If we want to reduce gun violence in the near future, our efforts have more promise in some other direction.
Umm that is what I said I was going to link and what I had said earlier. Why are you deliberately trying to say and infer that I said something else? You read those studies? I find it surprising that they do not support what I said when I was quoting from the studies themselves. You honestly do not think there is a crisis in the US when there have been so many mass shootings in such a short space of time, not to mention countless of other acts of gun violence? Really? I would say that the US has gone beyond crisis point. And yes, whether you want to hear it or not, you are "drowning in gun blood". The author of that piece I quoted was absolutely correct. And you don't think that many mass shootings does not support that comment? The world begs to differ. Your own President begs to differ. The health and public health bodies in your country beg to differ. Getting shitty because *gasp* you were compared to other developed nations and such comparisons show a country deep in gun violence "crisis" is not arguing in a sane or reasonable manner. As for Switzerland, at one point, yes, they were having issues because gun violence was on the rise and people were losing their lives as a result. So they implemented a series of stricter restrictions and laws. You know, they responded to an emerging crisis that posed a risk to its citizens and society in general. As for France, Germany and Canada, yes, why don't you check what they are doing. France: Have strict guidelines and regulations whereby to purchase a firearm requires a permit. They are restricted in how many weapons they can own and also, the rounds the weapons can fire is also restricted. In short, they have stringent rules as to what and how many guns and ammunition people can purchase and/or own. And it is illegal for a civilian to own a fully automatic weapon. Germany: Gun ownership in Germany is regulated by the Federal Weapons Act (German: Waffengesetz), 1972; it extends previous gun legislation. It is considered a restrictive law.[95] Under this act Germany maintains a two-tier policy to firearm ownership. A firearms ownership license allows for the purchasing of weapons by those over the age of 18 who meet various competency/trustworthiness guidelines. Convicted felons, those with a mental disability or those deemed unreliable are denied licenses. To get a license issued it is also required to prove the necessity of owning a gun, while self-defense is not an accepted reason to own a gun. Owners of multiple firearms need separate ownership licenses for every single firearm they own. For shooters it is necessary to be a member of a shooting club for more than one year. Furthermore, within the last 12 months, a visit to a shooting club must be recorded no fewer than 18 times. The second tier is a firearms carry permit which allows concealed carry in public. The permits are usually only issued to individuals with a particular need; such as persons at risk, money couriers, etc. The laws apply to any weapons with a fire energy exceeding 7.5 Joule. Several weapons and special ammunitions are completely prohibited. To these belong for example automatic firearms and weapons of war, as well as weapons like Brass knuckles, Switchblades, Balisongs, Nunchakus or Tasers. Buying, possessing, lending, using, carrying, crafting, altering and trading of these weapons is illegal and punishable by up to five years imprisonment, confiscation of the weapon and a fine of up to €10,000. Using an illegal weapon for crime of any kind is punishable by from 1 to 10 years imprisonment. Germany's National Gun Registry introduced at the end of 2012 counted 5.5 million firearms legally owned by 1.4 million people. (31. December 2013) people in the country. Oh look, "restrictive" gun laws. Could that be why they do not have a gun violence crisis? Canada: Also have restrictions in place, where there are laws and regulations that require training and proper storage. Types of guns are also restricted. Permits and licenses are also required. Well gee, restrictions again. Who'd have thunk it..Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The study and article looked at the comparison to note that very few actually use them for self defense. From that, we can question whether there are other methods, safer methods than having a loaded gun in the house, that can keep them safe in their homes. My question was that the rest of the world manages, so why can't Americans? Since the laws are what they are, why are there no restrictions in how those weapons are kept in the home? Or more to the point, so few restrictions and regulations in how firearms are stored in the home? And do people really need guns that can fire more than 30 rounds for self protection? As I noted earlier, it would make sense if people lived in a war zone, but it makes no sense in suburbs of America.
You claimed that: Is not supported by the Gallup Poll. And no, the figures clearly indicate that those who own guns, do not own just "one or two". Far from it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-for-every-man-woman-and-child-and-then-some/ http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-states-america You don't have a problem with the poll. You just have a problem with anyone citing said poll. I am a gun control extremist? How does that even work... So we are all just stupid and you made sense in your own mind... I noted above, we repeatedly sought clarification for those suggestions you gave. And I didn't miss the entire argument. Considering you have repeatedly attributed things to me that I did not actually say but merely quoted, not to mention accuse me of saying other things I never said and on at least one occasion, twisted something you said into being something I apparently said.. I am fairly certain I have not missed the argument. But do tell, that list.. What kind of discussion do you think would have been had when your recommendation amounted to the mass incarceration of black men, for example? Pray tell, how do you think that would have gone? Or how about the militarisation of the police force.. because apparently that is not happening already. It's not so much as your points making a good springboard as it being a case of it becoming a hole from which you would never have been able to live down. Hence why we sought clarification as to whether you were actually being serious. The discussion requires people to not fly off the deep end, accuse others of being extremists, stupid and all the other choice terms you decided to use to address others who dared to have a different opinion from you and your supposed beliefs, not to mention then posting spurious things that stymied the discussion itself because everyone was too busy trying to figure out what you were on about. Case in point: You quoted me out of context and then come out with this choice gem. Discussion requires parties to said discussion not posting like a dick. Which could be why so many have been trying to seek clarification and instead of providing it, you just continue to call people names, stupid and frankly, in all honesty, you have been posting like an abusive dick. No one knows why or what the problem is. Or what your problem is. Once again, it's not everyone else but you. Perhaps it's time you removed those "blinkers" from your eyes.
Second Amendment 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. Third Amendment No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. As we see above, in constitutional order, it was clearly recognized that there is a difference between a militia of the people and a soldier of the government. Tenth Amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I prefer the King James version of the second amendment, not the New Jerusalem. But really, it should be in museum. Or, maybe kids should eventually be allowed to bring assault weapons for show-and-tell?
Kids brought guns on our bus when I was growing up. Late 60s/early 70s. Hunting with buddies after school. Discussed this aspect of 'real life' with a boss a few years back. He used to bring guns to school to hunt afterwards. A decade earlier than my experience and 100 miles away. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2980293/posts
The irony here is this, every time we have one of these shootings it sets off a tsunami of gun buying. Whenever people talk about "common sense" gun regulations, gun sales soar. These events are very profitable for gun manufacturers and retailers.
Dunno if it was Manhattan BUT from the free republic link: Even in New York City, virtually every public high school had a shooting club up until 1969. It was common for high school students to take their guns with them to school on the subways in the morning and turn them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach so the heavy guns would simply be out of the way. After school, students would pick up their guns when it was time for practice.
Not where I grew up, and I grew up in the same period in rural America. My father was really tight on guns. He had many guns, and he had great respect for them and he taught us to respect guns and to understand gun use and ownership are very serious responsibilites.
So what? I didnt bring guns on the bus either. I didnt go with buddies to hunt after school. I liked fishing.
Yeah, so what...? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Guns would not have been tolerated on my school buses or in my schools. Though I did know a Neo Nazi who did have guns in the car he drove to school every day and was never caught and to my knowledge never shot anyone. He wanted to join the Army. But because of his Neo Nazi beliefs the Army didn't want him. He was not a very popular guy.
