[max_power29]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chicken_Little', '
')in that case please explain why Britain has a death rate of about 65 per year from firearms and the USA has over 10,000 per year.

i mean, are you fucking retarded or something?

whoops, no need to answer that, of course you're fucking retarded.

[rdberg1957]

Britain does have fewer deaths due to firearms. Many of the deaths in America are those of children who have obtained access to their parent's firearms. In Australia, mass murders have ceased since gun control laws went into effect. We love guns in this country and we have the funerals to prove it.

When we start quoting the Second Amendment to the Constitution, I hope we remember that there was no standing Army at the time that was written, no constituted police force to speak of, and the Militia was made up of citizens (farmers, blacksmiths, etch) who volunteered. At the time of the writing of the Constitution, I believe there were about 3 million citizens. Now there are 300 million.

If there came a need to overthrow our government, could we do it with assault rifles and pistols, semi-automatic weapons? That is the strongest argument in my mind for continuing the 2nd amendment, but we pay such a high cost for keeping our guns. We pay it in children and prisons, and blood. I'd like a better answer, but I think the road the Brits have taken is better than ours.

[Baldwin]

The children and prisons are a necessary sacrifice for the right to overthrow a government or shoot a robber.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rdberg1957', 'M')any of the deaths in America are those of children who have obtained access to their parent's firearms.

[Concerned]

The main reason I agree with firearm ownership is to be able to defend "yourself" from anyone, especially government and the corporations they are in bed with.

Cars kill more people than guns.

So anyone worried about deaths in society should seek to ban cars first and switch everyone over to public transport.

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', 'T')he main reason I agree with firearm ownership is to be able to defend "yourself" from anyone, especially government and the corporations they are in bed with.

Cars kill more people than guns.

So anyone worried about deaths in society should seek to ban cars first and switch everyone over to public transport.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('galacticsurfer', 'C')rime, drug abuse, family and social breakdown all have their roots in larger economic problems and lack of any common values or goals in the society.

If people are forced to waste their whole life doing shit they would rather not for people they can't stand to buy worthless garbage to make them look good to others whom they could really care less about it will be surprise if they do drugs, have family breakups, have little moral values and try crime, etc.

gun control is really a side issue and just concentraing on it is like modern medicine - only treating symptoms without getting at deeper problems of unhappiness in the population.

[Roy]

Tell me something, you advocates of gun control.

Why is it that you all feel the need to ask the government (a hideously inefficient and corrupt organization) to protect everyone?

Knowing what those of us here know about the world, energy, population, pollution, growth, limits etc I ask you this as well:

What problem has ever been solved by adding more people to the biosphere?

As Montequest so eloquently noted numerous times, what person with an understanding of nature and natural limits, could wish for a larger population of humans? Especially more Americans, the most wasteful and destructive creatures on the planet.

Jeeezus... Let's save everyone so we can build more subdivisions, home depots, and Chilis.

You all go ahead and give up your guns, and when a nutjob shows at your house, you can just lay down and let him kill EWE (thanks Raph).

That is your choice as a freedom loving American, and you have my full support if you choose that path. You are more courageous than I.

Non-Violence worked for Ghandi, and some say it worked for Jesus, however his non-violent revolution against the Romans took over 4 centuries to convert their empire. How many christians were tortured and killed during that time? A lot. Their solace was that they believed they were going to heaven. Good for them. That doesn't work for me though.

Its incredibly naive and gullible to believe that laws stop anything. They simply allow the police to punish, if the law-breaker is caught, which according to police statistics and anecdotal evidence from officers, is about 10% of the time. Roughly 90% of crimes go unpunished.

I'd prefer to have the right to own a gun. I'm too old to master the sword, and bows/crossbows are bulky and have limited range and rate of fire for my taste. Try facing a pack of feral dogs eating your chickens with a sword or crossbow. I'd prefer a semi-automatic rifle with a large magazine thank you very much.

If you fear an armed citizenry, then by all means move to a gun free zone like Chicago or New York or even Virginia Polytechnic university, where handguns are for all intents and purposes illegal. There is no law against that, and it is your right as Americans. Please feel free to exercise it and leave me the fuck alone.

Can you tell this is an emotional issue? LOL

You'll feel much safer in a "gun free" zone, and so will I if you go there and stop trying to force me, ironically using men with guns, to not own my own gun.

The 2nd Amendment: America's Original Homeland Security.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ritain does have fewer deaths due to firearms.

[Cloud9]

There is no doubt that there is a lot wrong with American culture. We have commercialized the values of one of our subcultures to the point that many young men go through puberty with goals that cause them to want to sell dope, hook up with a ho, and kill somebody. Most of these young men do not expect to make thirty. We can blame rap. We can blame hip hop. We can blame gangs. We can blame a well intentioned social welfare system that wreaked the nuclear family. We can blame the gun culture. It really doesn’t matter who we blame. The American underclass is large and it is growing. It is dysfunctional, well armed and dangerous. At the moment, most of the crimes committed by the underclass are perpetrated on other members of the underclass. Those that live safely behind the walls of their gated communities rarely come in contact with this harsh reality. Those in the lower middle class who are forced to rub elbows with the underclass are facing this reality more and more every day. The Middle Class is beginning to understand that the well intentioned laws written by the upper-class designed to disarm the lower-class are simply ignored. They have come to realize that the underclass does not give a dittly damn about Middle America’s norms or laws. There are millions of guns in circulation in the United States and millions more in circulation world wide. Past experience has amply demonstrated that legislation can not stem the tide of guns no more than it can stop the flow of drugs or illegal immigrants. Gradually Middle America is learning what the underclass has known all along. The police do not prevent crimes no more than fire departments prevent fires. They simply come in after the fact console the victims, pick up the bodies and sweep up the glass. The lower middle class knows that the demand for bread and circuses from the underclass is insatiable. At some point the demand cannot be met. Middle America is starting to feel it in their bones. Something wicked this way comes. That is why the conceal carry laws are being pushed. That is why the assault weapon ban has been lifted.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', '.')..The American underclass is large and it is growing. It is dysfunctional, well armed and dangerous... Something wicked this way comes...

[Sheb]

Zardoz,
Your post is, in my honest observation, one of the most propagandistic I have seen on this site. And it's not just the words. It's the images too. This is not about race. No one has said it is. So why do you bring up race? In fact, those living in inner cities, such as Baltimore and DC, most of whom are black, have the right to protect themselves as much as anyone else, and need guns more than many other "classes". It's not about racism or class, as you put it and find it comfortable to believe and push in your post.

And it's not abour Democrats vs. Republicans vs. Libertarians.

It's about the ability to, regardless of age, handicap, or physical strength, defend yourself agains those who want to harm you. That said...why do most anti-gun adds stink with the level of misinformation, fiction, misleading numbers, and propaganda that is typically associated with totalitarian regimes and fear-based movements.

So, to paraphrase one of your propaganda images, shall we all now unite in fear and hate against an individuals right to protect themself?

I don't mean to be inflammatory...but I gotta call it when I see it.

[Cloud9]

You presume too much. You assume it is an issue of race. It is not. It is an issue of class. I’m a third generation Mexican American. I’m a teacher. The guy across the street is an African American. He is a minister. We have been friends for years. The guy next to me was a Puerto Rican. He had a garage. We had been friends for years. Then his health deteriorated and he sold out and went north to be with his children. The guy that bought his house turned it into a rental. The people who live there now have been renting for about two years. Shortly after they moved in, their son was killed by a rival gang. The wake lasted a week. My yard and the Reverend’s yard filled up with mourners. There were a bunch of MS 13 tattoos in the crowd. We were both intimidated by their presence. The reverend’s kids are in the army. The mechanic’s kid is a cop. My kid is an attorney. The American dream is open to anyone who will accept the middle class virtues of hard work and the quest for more education. The underclass culture that idolizes the pimp and the gangster is a threat to themselves and anybody they come in contact with. P.S. I forgot to mention that I also have some white friends. As a final note, some of the people who came to mourn were white. To assume that a gang member has to be Black or Hispanic is the epitome of racism.

[ren3z7frs]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') can't imagine what it must be like living in a country awash with firearms.

[Sheb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ren3z7frs', '
')All the rest may be correct, but I don't believe in Missouri that "need" is a criterion for a concealed carry permit. I believe anyone may apply and be granted a permit as long as they satisfy background checks, etc.

[Sheb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ren3z7frs', '
')All the rest may be correct, but I don't believe in Missouri that "need" is a criterion for a concealed carry permit. I believe anyone may apply and be granted a permit as long as they satisfy background checks, etc.

[ALBY]

You Can't Repeal the Law of Unintended Consequences
Mike Vanderboegh


Dear Ben,

I want to say how refreshing your New Republic article of 19 March was for its intellectual honesty. After three decades of my arguing the originalist position of the 2nd Amendment with every sort of hoplophobe known to mankind, your collectivist "by any means necessary" proposal strips the self-deception and cant away from the anti-gun position. Still, even if you are successful in advancing it, your proposal will come apart in the real world when it smacks into the one law that cannot be repealed: the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Some years back, I was the designated "gun-nut goat" on a public forum panel discussing "gun violence." It was held in Birmingham, Alabama at Children's Hospital. As I was placing pro-2nd Amendment literature on the seats before the event, a child psychiatrist (so identified by the name badge on his white coat) came up to me, looked at the leaflets and said, with a smile and with what he mistook to be bravery, "You know, I think ALL guns should be banned."

I smiled back and replied, "Really? Do you own a gun?"

He was taken aback. "Well, NO," he said, with all the fear and loathing of Dracula confronted by a Crucifix with wolf's bane garlands.

"Well, how do you propose to get mine then?"

He paused, then said, "Well, we'll pass a law and you'll have to turn them in to the government."

I laughed. "Wrong, sport. Let me tell you how that would work. If you want my gun, you're going to have to kill me to get it. Not only that, but you're going to have to kill my son, my brother and all our friends. And if even ten percent of American gunowners feel the way we do, you're going to have to kill upwards of eight and a half million people, and that doesn't count all the anti-freedom pukes like you that we'll kill in righteous self-defense before we meet our Maker, and we intend to make that MORE than a one to one ratio. So you've got to ask yourself, sport: Is it worth it?"

I was still smiling, he wasn't. "Wuh, wuh, well," he stammered, "you're PARANOID."

I laughed again. "OK," I said agreeably, "let's admit that you're the expert in that field and say that you're right. Let's say I am paranoid." And here, I opened my eyes wide, began to edge forward and dropped my voice an octave so the next words came out most sinisterly. "Let's say I'm crazy."

He involuntarily backed up. I winked at him and finished, "That just complicates your problem, doesn't it?" He was so plainly frightened that I busted out laughing and ruined the effect. He was in full reverse gear when I called after him.

"Just do me one favor, sport. If you want my gun, you come get it. Don't send someone else's son or daughter in federal service. YOU come get it." I winked at him again. "And, hey, I might even give it to you after I unload it."

It turned out that he also was on the panel. He waited until I took a seat and then found a chair as far away from me as he could get.

I have found over the years that modern day so-called liberals (who bear little resemblance intellectually to their claimed classical liberal ancestors) lack the courage of their convictions. There is no principle so dear that they are willing to personally suffer for, let alone die for. Government, blessed government, is their idol. If they are aggrieved, oppressed, or merely imagine that they are oppressed, it is to government that they turn. There hasn't been a liberal willing to die for his principles since the Civil Rights movement. They are more than willing to dispatch the men and women of government to die in their place, however. But, and I think this is more dangerous to the country, they also extrapolate from their own cowardice and believe that all people (even those who disagree with them) will, in the end, do what they're told by Government.

I have no doubt, Ben, that you have been inundated with all manner of disputatious email, some likely obscene and/or incoherent with anger. The passion this issue excites is understandable, touching as it does upon the bedrock of the Founder's Republic and the future of our children's liberty. But beyond the sneering and the anger, no matter how contemptible and silly it may seem to you, these people, MY people, the people who believe in the Founder's Republic and the plain language of the Constitution, ARE willing to die for their principles. And a man who is willing to die for his country is most often willing to kill for it too.

This was the lesson of the Deacons for Defense and Justice in the 60s and 70s. The Klan (and the local and state governments controlled by them) had no problem intimidating and killing black folks who practiced "non-violence" until those non-violent protesters were protected by the guns of the Deacons. In addition, the federal government did not get actively involved in insisting that the civil rights laws be enforced until the prospect of civil war loomed as black men, veterans mostly, began to arm themselves and train under the rubric of the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

You know, government isn't guaranteed to always be on your side, Ben. Even so-called "liberals" have need of firearms. Absent firearms, and the will to use them, you're all just fodder for the next boxcars which convey you to a place with a sign that says "Arbeit Macht Frei."

But I am not angry with you. As I said, I appreciate your candor. But you must understand that the Law of Unintended Consequences cannot be repealed. And you can be tried, convicted and sentenced by it, both in real time and in the judgment of history. By once again reminding gunnies of the threat your beliefs pose to their liberties, you have no doubt motivated more than a few of them to go out and buy more guns and ammunition. Do you suppose that they are doing this in anticipation of turning them in when you're successful in repealing the 2nd Amendment? A recent history lesson is appropriate here.

From the time the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" was first proposed until it went into effect, something like 6 million semi-automatic rifles of military type (mostly SKS's and AK-47 clones) were imported into this country and sold. With them came billions upon billions of rounds of 7.62x39mm ammunition. That was more rifles of those types than had been sold in the previous twenty years! This was in defiance of the intent of the ban. It was in full expectation that the next law was to be one of confiscation. The Law of Unintended Consequences was in full swing then, and finally even the Clintonistas recognized that these millions of rifles and billions of rounds of ammunition were not being purchased to turn in to them, but to turn ON them if they became just a little more grasping.

So, I say with all seriousness, yet happily: Be careful what you wish for, Ben. You may get it. The Law of Unintended Consequences guarantees it.

[Sheb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ALBY', 'F')rom the time the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" was first proposed until it went into effect, something like 6 million semi-automatic rifles of military type (mostly SKS's and AK-47 clones) were imported into this country and sold. With them came billions upon billions of rounds of 7.62x39mm ammunition. That was more rifles of those types than had been sold in the previous twenty years!

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ALBY', '"')Well, how do you propose to get mine then?"

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'W')hat they propose is by no means to prohibit all guns. What they propose is to send the FBI's HRT to your house, to smash it with a tank, set it on fire with you inside, and machine gun anyone who runs out...