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Actually, Gatling guns are legal in Virginia. When most people think of machine guns, they think of fully automatic guns, where the force from the first bullet firing is used to eject the casing, load the next bullet, and fire it. A gattling gun is different - a manual crank is used to load the next bullet, and usually this means that another barrel is rotated into position.

The difference is that in the fully automatic gun, all you do is hold down the trigger; in the gattling gun, you must continually turn the crank. The theory is that the user of the gattling gun is in more control - kindof like the repetitive trigger pulling necessary in legal semi-automatic guns.

Gattling guns are used in modern guns to generate increadibly high-volume of fire. Remember the BFG in Predator? The use of multiple barrels allows a little more time for the barrels to cool off between sucessive shots. I would also suspect that they could be built to be less susceptable to jamming because, since it's an external force driving the gun, one dud bullet won't stop the chain of events.

p.s. INAGE (gun expert). Alternate theory: gatling guns that are replicas of the original may be exempt under "antique" laws

A lazy man's paradise, right? You can just sit back, not worry about your Constitutional rights, because they'll all be protected for you.

That's dead wrong, and life does not just go on as usual for many people in the U.S.. You obviously need to brush up on your history, as an immediate example comes to mind: the Espionage Act of 1917. Passed in support of WW1, it horribly abridged freedom of speech. People were thrown in jail with extremely long sentences for such things as writing communist literature, and one man was beaten to death after being arrested under it. Here's the best web page I could find on it in short notice, but I recommend heading down to the library and finding a good history book.

And what if they use these powers to persecute political enemies, blackmail innocent people, or subvert the processes of the political system? Nah, couldn't ever happen...

Yes, RMS is a fanatic. Also Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill.

When Hitler invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Prime Minister of Great Britain (Neville Chamberlain) tried to be "rational" and to avoid a new World War. So he sat down to negotiate with Hitler. He succeded to keep the peace. Hitler would rule Austria and Checoslovaquia.

Churchill was very critic about that. He always said that the Nazis were dangerous and that Hitler and the Nazis should be stop as soon as possible.

When Hitler invaded Poland it was clear he was right.

Only fanatics can lead a revolution. If RMS was rational, the Free Software movement would be lost.

I know that also Lenin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Tse-tung were fanatics. But is our responsibility to decide what is the wise solution. To follow a fanatic or to surrender to the current situation.

I follow RMS

In the 19th Century we repelled an armed invasion of Upper Canada (Ontario, Manitoba) from the American Libertarian forces (I'm sure it was some kind of deal with France due to The Napoleonic War, yes at one time Americans were friends with France and vice versa). Also during this century (as a member of the British Commonwealth) we sent troops to other regions in the Commonwealth (like India) and oddly enough, we produced beer for the British millitary forces in India (Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale, still available)

The 20th Century brought the World Wars. When Canada entered the war it was shown that our soldiers could carry more (per capita) than our European counterparts (because of a backpack system developed by the native populace and used by Canadien Voyager's & trappers for the last 300 years or so. Basically the backpack had shoulder straps AND a head strap, on average a Canadian soldier could carry up to 3 times that of a British soldier. This ability to carry coupled with the fact that Canadians were not fazed by France's 'bitterly cold' winter we were relegated to the work parties and rail crews. After much complaining to the war leaders Canadian regiments did see battle action in WWI and actually swung the tide of victory in our way at the battle of Vimy Ridge (Vimy Ridge).

World War II was filled with triumph and tragedy for Canadian soldiers (now completly autonomous from British rule) to read a brief summary of our exploits during WWII check out this page
Since WWII Canadian soldiers have seen action all around the world. And while true that Canada does not have a large standing army, if the call comes again to defend ourselves or our allies we shall rise to arms and fight for freedom.

What is my stake in all this? Well, my Great Uncle was a gunner in WWI, my Grandfather was a submariner with the Royal Navy in WWII, my Uncle was with the Merchant Marine in Korea and my father was a LRRP in Vietnam (with the American army) yowza!

Capt. Ron

"Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus" - Aneurin Bevan

Wow, that's utter b.s. Hmmm.....

Both Aneurin's parents were Nonconformists: his father was a Baptist and his mother a Methodist. David Bevan had been a supporter of the Liberal Party in his youth but was converted to socialism by the writings of Robert Blatchford in the Clarion.

Now I understand.


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Soldiers and cops and artists might all have been Leninists, but it wasn't socialist realism that produced or maintained the Soviet empire.

How much did the Fabian Society and the eventual Shavian wing of the Labor Party actually get accomplished? I'm not a student of British labor history. I don't know, myself. I love the S.I., but I think that saying they were solely, or even largely, responsible for Mai '68 is a misreading of history.

I guess I'm worried about the "with message intact" part of the "swallowed up into Nike ads" step.

Intelligent discussion on ./ is our friend!