[k_semler]

Capability to discharge more than one shot per trigger pull is an automatic firearm. A semi automatic firearm is only capable of one shot being discharged per trigger pull. Even bump fireing a rifle still only discarges one round per trigger pull.. Slam fires don't count, as the firarm was not supposed to do that in the first place. (and if it does, I reccomend you stop shooting and clean the damn rifle before you have an out of battery discharge.

[Clouseau2]

Mr k_semler:

You are ignoring the 200+ years that have passed since the revolution.

First of all, changes in government are happening more with peaceful means than by armed rebellion. Look at the end of Communist Eastern Europe.

Second of all, although we as citizens cannot purchase the same caliber of weaponry that the military can (thank God!) weapons that are effective enough are now very easy to obtain anywhere in the world (AK-47).

Look at what a bunch of insurgents/terrorists/"freedom fighters", using only bombs and second rate small arms fire, can do to the world's most powerful military. You're worried because you cannot own a machine gun?

Furthermore, it is exactly the easily obtainable RPG, AK-47 and explosives that are fueling civil wars and rebellions in good chunks of Africa. Now anyone with a few thousand dollars can equip a small army and stage a Coup ... This was not true 200 years ago. If anything, the fact that it *is* easy to get these weapons is leading to instability, not stability.

Somehow Europeans seem to enjoy their civil liberties quite nicely, without having to own firearms. How do you explain that?

[Clouseau2]

One more thing:

If you seriously think that the entire population of America, armed to the teeth with machine guns, anti tank weapons and .50 caliber rifles, would lead to a safer, freer nation, then you have a few screws loose.

Maybe in the past, most citizens owned a rifle or gun. But in colonial times "Rollo the mad dog rapist" couldn't go mow down 50 people at the local Denny's if he forgot to take his meds with the weaponry he would own.

[Jack]

Mr. Clouseau2;

Please recall Tiannamen square.

Please recall Pol Pot.

Please recall the Warsaw Ghetto of World War II.

Please recall the Ukraine famine.

These suggest a lack of peaceful resolutions in some cases over the past 200 years.

[k_semler]

It takes 3% to engage in a successful insurgency. THe population of Iraq is about 25 million people. This would mean that only 750,000 people need to fight for there to be a successful insugency, (considering they know how to fight). For the same to happen in the USA, (with a population of 294 million people0< it would require a fighting force composed of 8,820,000 persons, given adequate training and adequate arms. Do you honestly think there are 8.8 million people willing to die for the cause of an insurgency? I really don't. The average person is too damn concerned with American Idol, Survivor, and the SuperBowl to worry about anything as immaterial as Liberty. If I were a betting man, (and I am), that even if dissent were demmed a felony with a minimum 20 year prison sentence, the average person would just say "Oh well, it dosen't affect me." and happily go about thier merry way. Hell, on June 23. 2005, the SCOTUS ruled that emminent doman can apply when a government seizes private property to sell to another private citizen for the sole purpose of increased tax revenue. As far as I am concerned, this has effectively abolished the right of private property ownership. Now, we are officially renting our land from the government.

Did you hear about any shots being fired over it? How about even a massive protest? How about even people on the news beyone 3 days of the event? I thought not. None of it occured, and I am willing to bet no resistance, (verbal or physical), will occur on a massive scale. Sure, an individual may resist once in a while, but that person will just be villified by the MSM, and made to look like an enemy by the federalies. This will be used to "make an example" of what happenes to reistors. The primary reason this will be done is to extinglush any hope for an organized resistance to take root.

The American people will slowly surrender each and every right until we have none left. Hell, we are already to the point that we no longer have inalienable rights, merely heavily restricted government granted priveledges that can be recended on a whim. We as a nation have lost both the means and will to fight. Even if we were armed to the teeth, we as a people still lack in the one crucial aspect to engage in any reisisance, DETERMINATION. If it is beyond the 15 miniute instant gratification period, then the people will simply not do it because "It is just too hard".

Also, "Rollo the mad dog rapist" still wouldn't be able to mow down 50 people at a denny's even if as few as 1 in 4 people carried concealed wepons. Think about it. If you see some psychopath coming in intent on shooting up wherever the hell you are, and you have the means to stop the threat, are you going to run around in circles and scream bloody murder, or just get done what needs to be done. I would hope that you would eliminate the threat once it was clear that lethal force is nessecary to be applied. (Note I did not say unload on anyone that you get into the slightes altercation with, or anyone that pisses you off). However, you have a civic duty to help defend those people which are unable to defend themselves so long as you do not subject yourself to unnessecary danger. If you fail to act, you may be found partially liable for the deaths that resulted due to your failure to act.

Even on a smaller scale. Even if you are unarmed, and you happen to see somebody kicking the royal shit out of a cripple which obviously cannot defend himself, would you attempt to stop the situation using as much reasonable force as requred? Or would you just stand there like a coward and be too afraid to aid a citizen in need? My guess is, you would attempt to stop the situation using the adequate amount of force required. No more, and no less.

While some asshole kicking the shit out of a cripple might just be easily resolved by tackling him and holding him until the authorities arrive to take him into custody, do you think that the same lack of force could be used with a meth head armed with *anything*? Chances are, only using that amount of force would probably do little to the assailant, and most likely get you killed, and others worse injured if not killed due to the increase in anger. However, if you had a way to end it with minimal loss of life with as little risk to your self and others, would you not employ that method. Whether the force is yelling for him to stop, tackling him, or killing him does not matter so long as only a reasonable amount of force applied for the situation, and no more than requred. Ever hear of a thing called "Justifiable Homicide"?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'w')eapons that are effective enough are now very easy to obtain anywhere in the world (AK-47).

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LadyRuby', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'W')e speak of gun rights - but not so many years ago, one could go out and purchase a new machine gun for a relatively modest price. That's no longer true, and is unlikely to be true in the forseeable future.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Clouseau2', 'O')ne more thing:

If you seriously think that the entire population of America, armed to the teeth with machine guns, anti tank weapons and .50 caliber rifles, would lead to a safer, freer nation, then you have a few screws loose.

Maybe in the past, most citizens owned a rifle or gun. But in colonial times "Rollo the mad dog rapist" couldn't go mow down 50 people at the local Denny's if he forgot to take his meds with the weaponry he would own.

[k_semler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', '
')Ah, I love a liberal. Always so two faced and slimey. "We want free speech..."

[I_Like_Plants]

I'm right with SpecOp on this one, unarmed = subject, armed = citizen

And the Revolutionary era Americans did have as good weapons as the Brit military, or better.

Keep in mind right now the Iraquis have weapons, and expertise in IED's which is all that gives them some parity, if it were not for the fact that every Iraqui male from about 14 up has at least a rifle, they'd be being herded into concentration camps and gassed as we speak.

I don't care if they're the enemy because somehow our oil got under their sand, genocide is just plain wrong. And genocide happens when people can't defend themselves.

[Specop_007]

Dont think citizens NEED guns to keep a government in check?
I suggest you read this

A population begging for guns. Why? To overthrow the government.
Gee, makes you wonder doesnt it? Things are so bad their willing to fight and die to make a change. Dont think it will get that bad here? Take away our guns and find out. The Jewish community felt pretty confident handing over their guns to the nice SS Officer too. Guess in hindsight that didnt go so well for them did it.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('k_semler', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', '
')Ah, I love a liberal. Always so two faced and slimey. "We want free speech..."

[Macsporan]

I think you all underestimate the cunning and sublty of modern information control and psychological manipulation.

Willing, contented slaves who believe they are free are much more useful than resentful, miserable ones.

They won't formally take anyone's rights nor even their guns; they'll just become dead letters, rights you still have in theory, but in practice not at all.

They won't need to do anything drastic when they have a propaganda machine that can disarm people mentally and emotionally.

You will go to slavery surrounded by the endlessly repeated assurance that you are still free as your forefathers were.

If they have to deal harshly with anyone, well your not going to hear about that from the minions of the Ministry of Truth.

All the rough edges will be smoothed away and freedom will be smothered in a cloud of lies without even a whimper.

Some say this has already happened...

[Macsporan]

Ah, Specky's at it again.

He'll have a heart attack one day. Poor little fellow.

Don't worry, if the godless, San Francisco, faggot, Jew, Liberal, commie, welfare, single-mother, greenie, Democrat, Negro, Latino, Chinese, Islamic terrorist hit-squads ever come looking, we'll put in a good word for you.

We'll tell them that your just a cowardly windbag who couldn't hurt a fly.

So best behavior now.

It is hard to be tolerant of people who are really different from you, so you're going to set a very good example from now on, aren't you Specky dear?

No more abusive tirades, no more "hate" and "despise"?

Yes, that's the ticket.

You wouldn't want people to think you're a thick-witted, paranoid hypocrite, would you?

[MD]

The idealist hopes that increased education and comfortable living standards will make crime deterrants unnecessary.

The realist knows that human nature will always rear it's ugly head when there is no club to beat it back down.

The statistics don't lie in that disarming the honest population enables the dishonest population.

I want to educate and reform the morally bankrupt humans all around me(idealism)

I want the same to understand that if they choose to invade my domicile, or threaten my family, I have the means to end them, and will do so without remourse. (realism)

[MD]

If I had a cabin in grizzly country, I would be wary of of bears. I could avoid their territory, observe their behaviors and use reasonable caution. I would attempt to train them away from my domain as best I could by manipulating their conditioned responses.

When the day comes that I am faced with a charging grizzly though, I want enough cannon on my shoulder to stop him cold.

Forgive me for comparing much of the human population around me to animals responding to stimuli, but that is how I see them.

And before you call me elitist, believe me I have looked inward and seen the animal there, and it just helps confirm my opinion. I am just a better trained and more controlled animal.

[EdF]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Macsporan', 'I') think you all underestimate the cunning and sublty of modern information control and psychological manipulation.

Willing, contented slaves who believe they are free are much more useful than resentful, miserable ones.

They won't formally take anyone's rights nor even their guns; they'll just become dead letters, rights you still have in theory, but in practice not at all.

They won't need to do anything drastic when they have a propaganda machine that can disarm people mentally and emotionally.

You will go to slavery surrounded by the endlessly repeated assurance that you are still free as your forefathers were.
...

[gg3]

Specop, you might be interested to know that a bunch of us libertarian-oriented types have been lately convincing the Democrats to change tracks on this. Over the weekend I successfully convinced one such Democrat to change his tune from "gun control" to "gun-owners' rights." There are more where he came from. I suspect the D party is going to change its tune on this one. (PS for anyone who's wondering, I don't own a gun and have never fired one. When the shit hits the fan, my contribution to the defense of liberty will be in the field of intel & analysis).

Re. "overthrowing tyranny" and "military arms."

I used to be quite skeptical of the "overthrow tyrrany" arguement until I heard something very interesting from a friend in the military. Seems there's been a lot of talk among officers and among enlisted, over the past few years, about this topic. And specifically, about which part of a warrior's oath of service is more important: the part about obeying the orders of the President, or the part about protecting the Constitution from all enemies foreign *and domestic.* Yes, you got that right.

Long story short, here's the scenario:

A tyrant installs himself and attempts to disconnect the Constitition (pardon my use of telephony terms for those things but I'm tired....). By tyranny we're not talking about the so-far minor applications of the Patriot Act or the Eminent Domain decision, but something far-reaching and incontrovertible, something that is so obvious that there is no denying it. Cancellation of elections or gross election manipulation, prior restraint on the press, disappearances and mass detentions of US citizens, bans on public assembly, etc. etc. you get the idea.

When the inevitable mass protests kick up, the would-be tyrant attempts to call in the military. But the military splits down the middle. Approximately 60% support the tyrant, approx. 40% go into open revolt in defense of the Constitution against the tyrant.

Now here's where your armed citizenry makes a difference. The 40% of the military that's in open rebellion has to count on that armed citizenry for support. The professional soldiers do the heavy lifting, the armed civilians are hastily organized into the "well-regulated militias" of Constitional fame. These citizen militias, acting under the command of local military commanders supporting the rebellion, would handle tasks such as guard duty, sentry, patrol, keeping order in liberated zones, assisting local law enforcement in liberated zones, a certain amount of light combat duty depending on circumstances, and a lot of combat support duty.

Yes, under those circumstances you're going to have a hell of a lot more than 3% of the population engaged in the uprising. And yes, they are going to make the difference.

And yes, it would be civil war, the ultimate nightmare scenario, a nation divided against itself. The worst kind of hell. But the only thing worse is knuckling under to tyranny and giving up without a fight.

---

Ksemler, excuse me, but check your faulty assumptions at the door.

What's killing us in Iraq isn't the whiny liberal media, it's this:

Atrociously pisspoor planning from the top. Insufficient troop strength from the beginning. Insufficient armor and equipment. No plan for the post-maneuver phase of action. Atrocious intelligence leaks, including the outing of CIA covert operatives (Plame), sabotage of signals intelligence work (the Iranian code leak). Preferential treatment of private contractors. Insufficient training of guards in charge of prisoners. Top-level condonement of violations of the Geneva conventions. Hasty post-hoc measures such as stoploss-on-overdrive and fulltime combat duty for Guard and Reserves. A huge proposed budget cut to the Veterans' Administration, speaking of kicking wounded vets when they're down. And the endless ideological politicizations of the war right down to Karl Rove's latest little insinuation that Democrats are somehow disloyal.

Well Karl can try telling it to the 40% of boots on the ground who are registered Democrats, and I hope he gets a good earful from them for saying it. Or is he going to try to make up the recruitment losses from College Republicans? The same College Republicans who just turned down a recruitment ad for their newspaper? Because they have more important things to do than put their muscles where their mouths are?

And the endless "fixing" of the facts to fit the theory, as reported by the head of MI5 to his superiors in the UK government. To which I can say, it's no wonder that a friend of mine in uniform reports that his fellow warriors refer to the folks in DC who are running this show as "The Theoreticians." That's pretty damn scathing.

So check your faulty assumptions at the door, dude, and cut out the parrot-speak. The plain, painful, blunt fact is that the present Administration suffers from gross military incompetence. They're a bunch of draft-evading chickenhawks who don't know jack shit about how to run a war. They have turned victory in Afghanistan into a quagmire in Iraq, and our only hope is to elect a President who has real military background including command positions on his resume. A Colin Powell or a Wesley Clark. I would vote for either of them in a flat second.

And I would have full confidence that they would take the steps needed to not only win conclusively, but win honestly and honorably. Victory with no compromises at the front, on the home front, or on the moral front. Bin Laden and Zarqawi in chains before the Hague or dead as doornails, within three months of taking office. And the end of Al Qaeda and its barbarian offshoots within three years.

And by the way, if you believe in representative democracy, separation of church & state, and the various rights ennumerated in the Constitution, that makes you a liberal too. A classic 18th-century liberal, but a liberal none the less. Liberal as in liberty. That was an interesting lesson for me over the past week or so, discovering that a good chunk of my own conservatism is basically the same set of premises as classical liberalism, plus a healthy skepticism of government, a preference for freedom of enterprise, and (core conservative value) a healthy skepticism of change.

But make no mistake, if you believe in all that stuff the Founders wrote, don't go using the word "liberal" as a slur, because you're shooting yourself in the foot. And name-calling ad-hominems against American cities does not speak well of your manners either.

And yeah, we're going to come up with a better word to describe the other side in the debate, but it's not going to be a slur on a word and a philosophy that are so core central to America's origins. And we're going to come up with terms of debate that entail respect and proper comportment even as they speak with vigor and intensity on the issues of the day. There was a time when Senators spoke of "my colleague from across the aisle," and then there was a time when the Vice President used the f- word on the Senate floor. We're going to turn back the clock on that one too.

So you takes your choice and you takes your chances. I'm for civilization, for liberty, equality, and democracy, for one nation indivisible, and for debate founded on the premise of solution-seeking. How'bout you...?

[PenultimateManStanding]

Interesting remarks about your military friends, gg3. I wonder how there could ever be another Civil War in this country. When the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no stomach for a civil war there for obvious reasons: nukes. We might have little fires burning or smoldering, maybe even a coup and counter-coup. But out and out wholesale Civil War is simply not an option and everyone knows it. Same thing with a full scale World War. It can't happen (or it probably already would have). In many ways, our situation is completely baffling and I doubt anyone really knows what the hell is going on.

[Specop_007]

gg3, I already know we (being the common people) wont be fighting much if any of the military. You'd be hard pressed to find a more loyal, patriotic group of people. And those loyalties are to America and its ideals and principles as stated in the Constitution and not to a tyrant president.

Theres a very good chance those Abrams rolling over the hills towards you are coming to provide assistance and NOT to direct fire on you.
But if they are, Abrams are far from invincible. Without the Tusk uparmor the top armorplating on the turrents is pretty damned thin. Without getting into specifics, a high pwoered rifle just might punch through it. And molotov cocktails can make a mess of their day too.

Aside from that I think the Democratic Party is starting to realize if it doesnt budge on the gun control issue it aint gonna win. Its about that simple. Theres a whole bunch of us redneck bastards who wont vote in a gun grabber no matter WHO else is running.
Case in point? Last election.

Mac, still trolling I see. Cant attack my position with facts, so just make up bullshit eh? Thats ok, the mods will always let it slide and I've got thick skin so do your "worst" and fling your monkey shit all over.

[shakespear1]

Juding by this story already amny are gone.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Powers Declare Protest Must Go
Leaflets banned from grounds of Heritage Day
by Jeff Schogol


EASTON -- Police told anti-war protesters they could not hand out leaflets Sunday at Heritage Day denouncing the Iraq war, members of the Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern said.