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Newspaper That Published Gun-Owners List Hires Armed Guards
inode_buddha writes "Not long ago we ran a story about how a NY newspaper published lists of gun owners. Now, it seems the same newspaper has hired armed guards in response to unspecified threats to the editor, amid 'large volumes of negative response.' From the article: 'The editor, Caryn McBride, told police the newspaper hired a private security company whose "employees are armed and will be on site during business hours," the report said. The guards are protecting the newspaper's staff and Rockland County offices in West Nyack, New York.'"
... is that what irony looks like?
I hope the paper dutifully publishes the names of the armed guards they hired.
So what they're saying is the only way they can stop bad guys with guns is good guys with guns. Gee where have I heard that recently....
Wouldn't want their employees to feel threatened by the angry gun-owning proletarians they chastise and demean on a daily basis.
So, basically, you should only get armed protection if you're a politician or a sleazeball newspaper editor. What a great strategy to disarm your opposition so you can oppress with no fear of retribution!
While I'm in favor of banning guns, I'm not in favor of violating the privacy of thousands of people. What this paper did was, while still legal, incredibly unethical. It was a vindictive attack on gun owners to try to inspire fear in the public.
Personally, I would be upset with both the Newspaper and the State. The only reason the State knows legally that you have a gun is by registering, which is frankly unconstitutional in itself. The State acted irresponsibly with the information releasing it to a Public source. I hope they get sued.
The Newspaper on the other hand should know better. Publishing this was strictly for propaganda purposes to further the current massive push to disarm Americans. I won't tell you if I own guns or how many, but will say this. Any American not concerned with the push for gun bans should be extremely alarmed. Read some fucking history books and notice what happens when tyrants in control have nothing to fear from the peasants. Yeah, it always works out so well, which is why the article is in the US Constitution.
Sue them both, and boycott the Newspaper to put them out of business! I'm sick of propaganda agencies supported by the Government. And bet your ass they got a check from the Government for running that article.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"If everybody just didn't have any guns, crime wouldn't be nearly as bad... except us, we need them!"
"If everybody just used public transportation, these roads wouldn't be nearly as crowded. Except me, of course. I need my car!"
Striking similarity, eh?
Or ... perhaps if the average IQ of weapons owners didnt match the gauge they are shooting
Yeah. Like Joe Biden. Yes, he's a gun owner. Stupid ass that HE is.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
After a no-name newspaper gets national attention they decide that it would be a good idea to continue the story that got them the attention in the first place. If there were actually credible threats, then the police would be doing this.
Irony at its finest. It always baffles me that those in favor of banning guns are the very ones that use them. Of course its perfectly alright to have people with guns protecting them, yet it is entirely unacceptable for others to use them to protect themselves and their family.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Because clearly, it's the magazine's fault that 20 children were murdered by a depraved psycho. Limiting magazines to 10 rounds will fix everything, because dropping one clip and loading another takes so much time!
Congratulations, you've just proven to the whole internet that you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.
Why on earth would the state make the list of registered gun owners public?
Woo hoo. I am sure that this is what the founders thought of when they wrote and voted on the second amendment.
You have the right to own weapons with the ability to kill dozens(tens of dozens) of people in a matter of seconds, and if that ability is exposed to your neighbors you should threaten to use those weapons against people who pose you no threat to make them quite.
'The editor, Caryn McBride, told police the newspaper hired a private security company whose "employees are armed and will be on site during business hours," the report said.
So the newspaper is against guns and publishes a list of gun owners... and then hires a bunch of folks armed with, yes, guns. When push comes to shove, the reality is clear. Guns are effective as a defense measure. Criminals do not care about laws so outlawing guns will not take the guns from the criminals. This mean that all gun laws are for the explicit purpose of making law abiding citizens defenseless against criminals.
Guns can be used to make committing crimes easier and to make defense against crimes easier. Seems like a null proposition and that all guns should be abolished. Right? Well, not quite so fast there. Guns equalize the situation. Without a gun, crimes and defense against crimes depends purely on physical characteristics of the aggressor and the intended victim. A large and fit criminal can pretty much do whatever they want. Everyone else gets to suffer. Guns change this equation. Anyone who can shoot can defend themselves against aggression as long as they can aim and pull a trigger. This rebalances the equation in favor of having guns around for self defense.
I do not even personally own a gun (kids in the house and such) and yet I feel safer knowing that people around me could be carrying guns. Criminals always perform their crimes when the police are not present.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
But think about this a step further. Presumably, the people who are doing all of the threatening (clearly highly intimidating threats otherwise guards wouldn't be called in) are supposed to be the 'good guys' gun carriers, not the bad guy criminals who aren't supposed to have guns in the first place. This whole thing says a lot about the perceived power a gun holder has over someone without. Good guy or bad, own a gun and you start to feel power enough to turn into a thug.
And aren't the thugs what the good guy gun owners want to defend against?
The founding fathers did not in any way think of the internet, therefore we shouldn't have a right to free expression on the internet. The founding fathers didn't have a clue about Mormonism, therefore Mormons shouldn't have a right to practice their religion. Etc.
It is a misconception that the second amendment was written to allow for hunting or even just private home defense. Instead the second amendment was written to allow private citizens to own the same weapons that the government had access to, therefore assuring that if the republic would turn to tyranny the citizens could stage an armed revolt and change the government.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Pissing off gun owners is just asking for a Darwin Award ;-)
Table-ized A.I.
Certainly some of the employees of the newspaper, their relatives, and friends own registered firearms. I wonder if the paper removed any of those people from the list before they published it?
Better known as 318230.
Disclaimer: I'm a card carrying NRA member, and I'm also a card carrying ACLU member.
Right now, no matter if one stressing the 1st amendment or the 2nd amendment, or both, it is already way too late.
The so-called "Freedom of Speech" is but a damn charade - for it's the so-called "freedom" allowed by tptb.
Same thing as the "Right to bear arms" --- you think with your pissy little semi-automatic assault rifles you can fight the army?
America is no longer the land of the free - although there are still a lot of very brave people living there.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
http://christopherfountain.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/keep-up-the-heat-and-look-whos-got-the-home-address-of-cyndee-royle-editor-of-the-journal-news/
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
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So it turns out that a not insignificant number of the 'good' gun owners turn out to be people who should be let nowhere near a gun.
These idiots post a "steal me" list of people with guns so now criminals have a shopping list and now they hire armed guards to protect them because gun owners are angry? To quote Ripley, "did IQs drop sharply while I was away""
I'm quite sick of reading and otherwise hearing about journalists publishing hit pieces and other types of pointed articles on products and individuals and businesses that lack the proper levels of thought out scenarios or if-then's.
Nobody wishes harm to anyone of course but quite literally there are consequences to some speech and I would think a newspaper would be bright enough to know this.
The potential for setting up owners for thefts and break in's should have been thought provoking enough to make a writer and an editor think twice.
Those two phrases, "untrained" and "certified" are entirely contradictory. You are a complete fool if you believe that you can get a concealed weapons permit in ANY US state without taking a state-approved training program and being evaluated by the state's Highway Patrol.
Please educate yourself to prevent further embarrassment.
The problem with letting random citizens own guns is that most people are too careless, too random, too emotional to be predictable and safe.
You're just making shit up now.
Let's run some quick numbers.
There are roughly 30,000 "firearm related" murders each year in the US. There are roughly 85,000,000 gun owners in the US.
Now, let's make one assumption. Every murder victim is killed by a different shooter. This isn't the case, but since the numbers would skew in favor of your argument, I don't think I'll argue the point.
So, each year 30,000 out of 85,000,000 are unsafe/unstable.
That means that 0.03529% of gun owners shouldn't be trusted in any given year.
No matter how you slice it, that's far from "most".
So these people are harboring fantasies of hiding in the bushes fighting their own government! Hardly what I could call a patriotic attitude...
George Washington...
Only people who have a job that requires guns should have guns.
I hope they send you to take mine.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The potential for setting up owners for thefts and break in's should have been thought provoking enough to make a writer and an editor think twice.
Hmm...
should have been thought provoking enough to make a writer and an editor think twice.
That's a little bit better...
make a writer and an editor think
Ah! Well, there's your problem.
Gun control advocates love to indicate the 'logic' that less guns correlates to less homicides. But Logic, also requires that negation hold true. More guns = more homicides... right? However when gun sales have surged in the last 10 years, increasing nearly 40% in the last 10 years, homicides, especially gun related homicides, are down. Funny how "a clear correlation between guns and homicides" breaks down when applying basic statistics. .0003% of guns used in homicides... clearly a problem with guns, if and only if you lust after leaving people defenseless and powerless. Of course if less gun = less homicides then more guns = more homicides which... well isn't true.
Wait it isn't linear... wait there are more regressors... wait there are more excuses and attempts to over-fit a model... Did you know that the price of gasoline correlates to the number of homicides committed between the hours of 9 PM CST and 11:41 PM CST. Of course the question is how strong the correlation is. Good lore you would be surprised what you can make correlate to something.
The USA doesn't have a gun problem, it has a gang violence problem. You take out gang related homicides and guess what, were are nearly identical to Canada, England, France, Iceland, Norway, Spain, Germany, and the rest of the top 30 peaceful nations per 100,000. The problem is inner city poverty, broken homes, and poor childhood development which is the American cocktail for gangs.
Keep your head in the sand and keep ignoring the gang violence problem. Yeah ban the last line of defense citizens have against those lawless gangs...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Considering how angry the gun-owners are about the publication, and how not-angry non-gun-owners are about it, empirically not many people seem to be worried about your version of the question.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That's right kids, they are just following the gutless NRA nanny state suggestion - the one where the government is supposed to protect children by hiring a lot of armed guards.
Doing the right thing and helping to control military quality guns requires more courage than the NRA has. Asking for the government to get a lot bigger and protect all the children in a nanny state solution is a cowardly way to avoid responsibility.
Did they check to see if any of these armed guards were folks they'd outed with their map of addresses? Don't want any of the people you victimized being your protector...
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I thought gun owners were proud of what they are, not poor fraidy-cats who need to threaten those who let people know about them.
because dropping one clip and loading another takes so much time!
Indeed. For anyone that thinks that loading a magazine is some major roadblock, take a look at the video I'm linking below. It's of Max Michel drawing his gun from a holster and firing 18 rounds - reloading twice (every 6 rounds on 3 targets) all in under 5 seconds. Granted, he's a grand-master ranked pistol shooter, but even the most ham-fisted idiot won't take more than 3-4 seconds to perform a mag change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QhmSg3UjEU
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
And the tolerant left shows itself once again. One of the reasons the USA is a great country is because we allow close minded people like you to have a voice. Gun owners who have legally obtained their firearms are far less likely to break the law.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
that's assuming that someone who is "unsafe/unstable" is 100% likely to kill or injure in a given year, which is silly. you don't include injury, but adding it only brings things to ~0.1%. of course it's worth noting that suicide makes up about half of the deaths.
the real problem is that you're looking at the probability P[gun owner]*P[unstable||gun owner]*P[attack||unstable gun owner]; you can't estimate the middle term with just one type of statistics. you'd need some kind of sample of gun owners taking psych treatment or such; or information on whether the murder was in defense; etc.
the OP has a shrill, not very good argument; it doesn't deserve quantitative analysis (which would be pretty difficult to do right).
i am really suspicious of whether guns are a net benefit in terms of self-defense, and i give not a shit about hunting. for me, ideally, guns would all be locked in magical safes that only opened when "the tree of liberty needs to be watered," but since such a thing doesn't exist, i'm a somewhat reluctant advocate of gun rights.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Sounds ironic, but I don't think the newspaper gets the real problem. The biggest complaint about registration is, what happens when criminals get a hold of the list? They can't use a weapon they bought, so they use a stolen one that can't be traced back to them. By publishing this list they have created a shopping list, and they wonder why people would be angry? Gun control should be making sure that only safe, sane, and law abiding people have access to guns.
"Force, my friends, is violence: the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived. Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence never solves anything, is wishful thinking at its worst. The people who forget that always pay, and they pay with their lives."
There is a difference between something being "public information" but requiring specific action to discover and a 3rd party collecting that information and publicly publishing it.
I think that the newspaper did that in an attempt to intimidate those people and anyone thinking of getting a similar permit.
Which is where the "irony" part comes in.
Now the newspaper people are the ones intimidated.
Now the newspaper people have turned to OTHER armed people (not the government or police force) for protection from the people they attempted to intimidate in the first place.
It's still stupid on both sides.
scum like Squiddie and the rest of the sickening gun wackos
I don't actually own any firearms. Just for the record here.
First off, I wouldn't say they were *significantly* more innocent. They attempted intimidation first. They are more innocent than the people threatening them with deadly weapons but that it for that part.
Secondly, they did not just post the names of the people who threatened them. They also posted the names of innocent people who had exercised their 2nd Amendment rights and who have NOT threatened them. They are less innocent than those people.
So the final question should be whether 50%+ of the people they "outed" have threatened them or not. I'm going to guess not. But that's just based upon the people I know who own guns.
DId mommy not hug you? Easy there, killer...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Honestly I think you're being quite overzealous. Seriously, calm down and think with a straight mind.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
---gun owners, in at least one study, were 4 times more likely to be injured by a gun than non-gun owners. And gun owners with an opportunity to defend themselves with their weapons were over 5 times more likely to be injured or killed by a gun than non-gun owners.
You are right not to have a gun in the house, when you have children. In addition to the accidents that can occur, it's sobering to consider that nearly half of teen suicides are committed with guns. Yes, some of those suicidal kids will find another way, but I can't help thinking that making suicide harder to accomplish at least reduces the impulsive acts, and that could lead to finding treatment.
The statistics about domestic abuse and guns are even more depressing.
We need an "incorrect information" mod for this post please.
I'd be happy with a "disinformation" mod.
Sent from my ENIAC
Even the biggest idiot will take time this is true.
So just how many seconds will it take for someone armed to show up and stop the shooter in the gun free zone?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Military members stationed stateside aren't authorized to carry weapons on base unless they are in training or in certain units. Military bases are gun free zones bud.
Also note that many of the people who advocate guns like to claim that this is their way of ensuring that they can fight back against the government. So these people are harboring fantasies of hiding in the bushes fighting their own government! Hardly what I could call a patriotic attitude...
Check out the battle of athens in 1946
In your link that was non-Japanese Americans imprisoning Japanese Americans during a war with Japan.
I doubt the military's commitment to imprisoning people who look exactly like they do who are their friends and family. The guys in military come from the same small towns that the people with the guns come from.
...there's often good reason, hiding.
I don't have any problem with introspection and I carry every day. The NRA is no more representative of "Gun Owners" than Microsoft is representative of "Software Engineers." Both businesses have quite a number of them, and considerable money, but their organizational opinions don't represent all of us. For more on this, read: slashdot.org
If you can overcome that broad brush generalization, then the problem is this:
Every time there is a tragedy involving guns their is an outcry from the far left that "now is the moment to strike" and they push for legislation they have been dreaming of for decades to see what they can get through. Political war mongers take the prize for this tactic when using unrest in the world to justify military spending. Now is little different, all us folk in the States feel bad about those poor kids, and the people on the far left want the Clinton era assault weapons ban back even though we had it, and the crime stats before, during and after look absolutely flat. They are like the modern Prohibition Party, they simply refuse to learn from very obvious history lessons: http://www.prohibition.org/
For a much more modern lesson on it have a look at London, it's got crime rates like New York but stronger anit-gun laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London. In particular, look at the knife-enabled crime rates. 16.8 per 10k people? Taking the guns away causes the criminals to change weapons, it doesn't fix crime. The things that drive criminals to misbehave do not evaporate in the absence of optimal tools. As for the argument that it changes the nature of crime for the better, people too old to defend themselves with knives or martial arts can explain the defensive advantage of the "Great Equalizer" better than I. Ask an armed one.
If you want to solve crime, you do so with economics. I'm sorry it's doesn't have the quick-fix magic promised by your politicians, but it's the only thing that works. Of particular note is that violent crime is heaviest in places with sharp economic downturns. The four entries the US gets in the "cities by murder rate" chart are New Orleans, St. Louis, Detroit and Baltimore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate It doesn't take much reading to find out what these cities have in common and it's not gun laws.
So, yes, the NRA is using deceitful diversionary tactics to try to stall useless new laws that will only endanger more citizens. I don't know where this puts them on your moral map. For mine it leaves them somewhere between "useful" and "digusting" in the zone labeled "people I don't want to be anything like." Many large companies are mapped to this zone.
If you want to put a dent in the ugly issues of every-day and exceptional violence:
1. Vote for a Congress that works and make a good overall economy. Hopelessness kills.
2. Be decent people. Demonizing the other side in a political debate creates the illusion of an atmosphere of war that aids unstable people in justifying aberrant behavior.
You are a stranger to me, but given the opportunity I will step into harms way to protect you. Whether you realize it or not, I'm on your side.
P.S. That was introspection.
That's the wrong question.
The correct question is, if The Revolutionary War was fought with M16's, would our Founding Fathers have been okay with civilians owning them?
Or, phrased another way, is there any weapon that our Founding Fathers would have insisted NOT be allowed to civilians and ONLY be kept by the government?
And today Caryn McBride understands the maxim "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
Granted, he's a grand-master ranked pistol shooter, but even the most ham-fisted idiot won't take more than 3-4 seconds to perform a mag change.
I think you are giving the crazy people too much credit. Under ideal conditions, yeah, it ain't that hard. But under stress in conditions that the shooter has never experienced before, seems like there is a reasonable chance of fumbling and even dropping the magazine on the ground.
I think the idea of smaller magazines is a good one - just like I think the idea of smaller soda cups is a good one. It adds friction but does not seriously stop anything. A little bit of friction at the right point can go a long way.
On the other hand, the time when banning the sale of large magazines could add friction is rapidly coming to an end. A few more years, 10 at the most, and anyone will be able to use a 3D printer to manufactuer high capacity magazines in their living room. In 10 years, they'll probably be able to manufacture full-auto weapons too - or at the very least the parts necessary to go from semi-auto to full-auto.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
the gun owners demonstrate why they should not own guns. They lose their cool and react in hate and threats. People who are that uncontrolled can't be trusted to operate a firearm under stress or for the right reason. They should have their guns taken away until the grow up. The paper published what was on public record, so the gun owners try to intimidate the press - threaten death and violence- for publishing something they didn't like. but is readily available. W T F
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
The military usually takes advantage of those larger magazines for suppressive fire. Your goal with suppressive fire isn't to kill your target but rather to keep your targets head down long enough for you to do what you need to do.
how you are able to divine the intentions of people that you have never met and do not know?
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
If you think for an instant that this list will not be carefully inspected by criminals seeking to minimize occupational hazards, you have another thing coming. Thanks to Sandy Hook, homeowners without guns will not likely be able to purchase guns for some time (many stores are sold out due to sudden demand). Therefore, this list will remain accurate for some time to come.
From a security standpoint, this list is really terrible, and is almost worse for non-gun-owners than for gun-owners, at least in terms of immediate personal security.
It is always about so many of the citizens being pissed enough to be willing to die in protests or go to jail in such large numbers that the Government is no longer sure of the support of large sections of its police, army, administration etc.
Doing that with assault rifles or unarmed like Gandhi is no different. An individual in both cases has to be willing to die, even if the overall fatalities as a group may be less or more.
How many US Citizens with assault rifles have ever protested against the TSA ? Can you even imagine them doing so ? Its probably better to protest unarmed against Governments. As a rule, the Government can't back down from an armed conflict till it has expended all its resources. Its quicker and cleaner, relatively, for hordes of people to protest, go to jail, get hurt, few even killed to make a sufficient impact.
In the end it is only about Numbers. Off course,
please, then, explain your interpretation of the first phrase of the 2nd amendment, which qualifies the second phrase. That is, are you part of a well regulated militia, and tell us how you are "well regulated"?
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
They'd shoot you in the back if you were unarmed, as well.
Because you'd be running...
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Every time I've been the victim of a violent crime, I've been nowhere near the scene of it, or even unaware of it at the time.
I think you missed a word in that sentence, with anything in regards to self-defense... FTFY
Now you can see why what you said made no sense. You're welcome.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Gun opponents are quick to say that, like sex offenders, gun owners are a threat to society. One problem: None of those registered gun owners has ever been convicted of a felony. None of them have been proven to be threats to society (or they wouldn't be allowed to own a gun).
The wrong-headedness of this sort of blatant, vigilantist journalism betrays everything real journalism is about - delivering objective news. It's sad when so-called journalists do this, because it paints their entire profession in a bad light (and their news organization)
Somehow, I don't think a government that is quick to persecute an individual because of the lawful choices they make would be one the journalists would ultimately thrive in - yet these "journalists" probably congratulated themselves on how clever they were in doing this to others, simply because they didn't share the same opinions on gun ownership.
Ultimately, they have nothing to fear from lawful gun owners... but those who would do harm to others might be more than a bit interested in their names and addresses, if nothing else, as potential burglary victims. They didn't think about the consequences of their actions when they published this list - though the hoped it would harm, in some nebulous way, gun owners. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they cry foul and hire armed guards. What a sad statement on what sort of people they are (the creators of the map, the editors and publishers who allowed it). They never thought about their co-workers, their families, or even themselves... all to make an ill-conceived political attack on innocent people.
By which exotic extrapolation method did you reach 'the left!' from his or her post?
You are hiding behind "Anonymous Cowards" because you have no clue what "well regulated" means, as the term was used in the days the Bill of Rights was written. Ever hear of "the regulars"?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The Constitution also mentions people in other places, like those who vote for senators. Being a member of the militia back them (and now) is BYOG.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
... the prime example of why gun registration, carry permits, etc, need to NOT be public information ... or just entirely outlawed.
I'm not against making some improvements to gun laws to make sure certain people should NOT have guns. But this action by this utterly stupid newspaper and its utterly stupid editor basically just destroyed the efforts to come to an agreeable improvement. But I will defend their 1st amendment right to be stupid.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I have a CCW permit for both Florida and Utah (which is valid in over 30 states total). The "training" was essentially demonstrating to the instructor that I can actually hit the paper target and there was a class that was about 1.5 to 2 hours long that was more or less about what you could and couldn't do with your permit than about how to handle your weapon. I was not evaluated by any law enforcement agent from either state. From what I remember it was basically a standard background check and the instructor had to vouch that you weren't a complete idiot. It was not a rigorous process at all.
You are a complete fool if you believe that you can get a concealed weapons permit in ANY US state without taking a state-approved training program
For starters, you can carry concealed without any permit at all in several states (e.g. Alaska, Arizona, Vermont).
Furthermore, in many of the states where you need a permit, the only thing necessary to get one is a background check. I can vouch for at least Washington not requiring any training to get a CCW permit, from personal experience.
>Guns don't insure freedom by any stretch of the imagination.
I'm coming to your house to stab you with a big ass knife. I am 6'4" and work out daily.
Wait, what do you mean you are calling the cops who will bring guns to protect you. Violence by proxy is still violence. Intimidation by threat of calling the cops is approval of violence.
We already live in a society where the price of free speech is the threat of violence. Go around and randomly tell people 'your mother is a cock sucking whore and she serviced me well last night' and by the end of the day you'll probably find one person to beat your face in. The first amendment requires discretion of use, just like the second.
This reveals perfectly the real mindset of many gun owners
In this particular case, we have one guy making a very vague threat. Do you have any reference to back your "many gun owners" claim?
please, then, explain your interpretation of the first phrase of the 2nd amendment, which qualifies the second phrase. That is, are you part of a well regulated militia, and tell us how you are "well regulated"?
All able bodied males 18-45 are in the militia according to US federal law. The militia has two parts, first the active part which includes but is not limited to the National Guard, the second is the inactive part that includes everyone else. Active/inactive refers to whether you are expected to train periodically. "Regulated" in its 1776 context is also referring to being trained so one performs in an efficient manner, it is not referring to be licensed or restricted.
...
Sorry no link, this was discussed in an ROTC class in college where the organization of the US military was being described. Regular, active reserve, inactive reserve, federalized national guard, active militia, inactive militia,
The same regimentation isn't applied to private citizens, so what justification do you have to expose us to a greater risk?
There is no justification, because there is no need for one. The onus is on those desiring to restrict the freedom to own high-capacity magazines to clearly demonstrate that the increase in risk justifies the limitation - same as with any other restriction on personal rights.
By definition, the conservatives in the USA are liberal. And, almost all media is owned by conservatives.
Learn to love Alaska
---gun owners, in at least one study, were 4 times more likely to be injured by a gun than non-gun owners. And gun owners with an opportunity to defend themselves with their weapons were over 5 times more likely to be injured or killed by a gun than non-gun owners. You are right not to have a gun in the house, when you have children. In addition to the accidents that can occur, it's sobering to consider that nearly half of teen suicides are committed with guns. Yes, some of those suicidal kids will find another way, but I can't help thinking that making suicide harder to accomplish at least reduces the impulsive acts, and that could lead to finding treatment. The statistics about domestic abuse and guns are even more depressing.
And proper training would eliminate most of these accidents and child suicides. The requirement to go through a hunter's safety class in order to get a hunting license greatly reduced the number of hunting accidents. When I went through the class it was mostly firearms safety and statistics similar to what you offer were brought up. However the solution was to keep firearms securely locked up and/or partially disassembled (ex. remove the bolt from the rifle and lock up the bolt - only need a small box not a large case). We were taught that keeping a loaded firearm laying around for defense actually put us at risk and that keeping the firearm locked up in some manner reduced the risk back to a household without any firearms. Our class was taught by a state game warden and "books" were state publications.
At least, the newspaper has all the armed guards' names and addresses.
so some newspaper lists all the registered gun owners on a website where you can look to see where guns are and who owns what, the current mood is that guns are killing machines and not really usable for anything else. Exceptions for hunting allowed, but you do that with a different kind of gun than an AK-47 or an AR-15, which are clearly not for hunting, just shooting AT people.
gun people are being viewed through the lens of "psychopaths" and then people start throwing death threats, therefore proving the point that perhaps they are psychopaths....AWESOME WIN!!
I can understand the kick people get from firing them, but I don't understand why they need that in their house. Is america such a dangerous country to live in? perhaps you should fix that, then you won't need guns, like we did in europe.
I view most gun owners I've read or seen on the telly as complete nutjobs, they say things like, a well armed militia, we can defend ourselves if the government turns bad, etc, etc. Are these guys for real? you could not in a million years, take down the government in it's current state, with your piddling stock of semi or fully automatic rifles, what is that going to do against a tank? I suppose you're gonna tell me you can blow the tracks off, awesome, but there are hundreds of tanks.....
I said this once on a forum a week or so ago and the answer was, you don't attack the tank, you attack the crew inside who get out to eat, etc, etc. The response is obvious, you have to survive that long in the first place, which you won't do.
ANYBODY, NO EXCEPTIONS, would get killed within an hour if the government turned up on your doorstep, even if you scored some minor kills, you've be overwhelmed eventually and you'd lose, there is no tactical way for you to win, they can fire missiles at you from 100's of km's away. You're toast.
so anybody saying it's to protect themselves against the government is a crack head....they have no grip on reality AT ALL, so to be honest, I don't like the idea of them owning guns, just in case one of them goes "nuttier than normal" and starts running around main street wasilla doing a number on people.
So that takes care of the people owning the big, killing machine type weapons, what about people who hunt, well, typically they own guns which aren't really a problem, it's the crazy people we have to look out for, anybody sensible enough to know how to hunt and put food on their table from the local environment is clearly a couple of grades more intelligent than the rest of them, so I trust those guys a heck of a lot more.
pistols? yeah I guess in self defence, but why do you have to have guns in the first place? are people in america so dangerous that you can't trust anybody......jees....fix your screwed up society man....first world country? doesn't look like it to me....california, new york, florida (parts of), san francisco, perhaps those parts are first world, but the rest? no effing way, the rest is full of sister fucking religious lunatics who force women to take trans-vaginal ultrasounds to listen to the heartbeat of the baby they are going to kill to try to shame women in taking care of their lifes and their businesses, they are the guys propping up congress and the house of representatives and making sure the military industrial complex keeps on trotting along....healthcare? holy mackeral......bleeding to death in a hospital because your insurance is out of date, are you serious?? what kind of human does that...a shitty human, a piece of crap I hope one day runs out of insurance and dies, cause I'm sick of living in a world populated by these assholes.
a lot of americans who visit barcelona, spain where I live, say they would never return, they spend 1 year studying and then move to london, or thailand for 6 months, perhaps australia after that.....all americans of about 20 years old, should just leave that stinking cesspool and come to europe...
your country is a mess, sort your shit out and you wouldn't have these problems in the first place!
Look at things this way: Americans are sleeping; the few that feel concerned about privacy are losing the war.
Inflight of that, I'd argue that anything that may shock people into reacting is fine.
Cops are trained professionals who receive regular firearms practice and are specifically trained in the art of diffusing heated situations. I know the media likes to paint a picture of inefficient and corrupt cops, but those are a tiny tiny minority. The vast majority are highly professional and held to a much higher standard than the average citizen, and for good reason.
Calling the cops on someone who is threatening to hurt you is not a threat of violence, nor is it a threat of intimidation. Calling the cops is an action of protecting myself, not attacking my attacker.
Civilians are not required to receive any firearms practice before owning a gun, nor do they receive any training in diffusing difficult situations. This is the reason gun ownership should be monitored and regulated. Your very own precious second amendment specifically states "a well-regulated militia". How in the world is a random collection of random civilian Americans, most without any formal firearms training at all, in any way a well-regulated militia?
Eat the rich.
IANAA (I am not an American) but why don't they turn the tables on the Newspaper and publish the names, specialities and addresses of the editorial staff of the paper in a full-page advertisement in its biggest rival in the city?
I assume that most of that data should be "publicly available" via some means or other...
After all, turnabout is still considered fair play in most places. /evil_grin
Part Time Philosopher, Oft Times Romantic, Full Time Unix Geek
Yeah, maybe your kid if you're that inept to believe what you just wrote.
I couldn't let this one fly just in case somebody reads this and takes it seriously. The shotgun does not throw a basketball-sized ball of death down the fucking hallway. At 3-4 meters it's more than likely going to be the size of a tennis ball depending on the ammunition used, as well as the choke and other aspects of the weapon in question.
And if you don't think that double-aught buckshot can't burn through an interior wall and whack little Timmy, I've got a bridge to sell you.
In addition, the whole First Amendment issue: I've got friends of mine in the NRA and other firearms organizations who are receiving death threats from left-wing morons. Thoughts on inciting violence? Hmmm??? Was the purpose of the article to inform or inflame? You mentioned that many interpretations are valid. I think the article was written for sensationalism and page hits.
The Arsenals of Isher?
The dictatorship you are describing is mostly in place already. Sure, it's not a single person but a group of people that are ruling it. Right wing religious? Compared to world politics, both democrats and republicans fit that bill. majority of gun owners backing it up? Sure, both parties get a large group of gun owners supporting them. You may think that the political differences between democrats and republicans are big, but 95% or more are trivial and marginal. You have no (significant amount of) liberals or socialists in your government. Even though a large amount of your population is Hispanic or otherwise not conforming to the white right wing Christian demography, they don't have any significant representation in your government.
"The devils biggest trick is convincing you he does not exist." You are already in your dictatorship, it's just hidden well enough for you to believe it's a democracy. Do a nation wide one-man-one-vote style election for parliament every for years and see what comes out of that. You may see a very big political change within 20 years.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Every M16 I fired in the military in the early 80's had a 3-position selector for: single-shot / 3-round-burst / full-auto
You're mis-remembering. All M16s have had a safe position, and none have had both burst and full auto.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
Shouldn't the newspaper live to its "no gun" ideals and live by example? They should just protect themselves with kindness and understanding.
The Red Army was 100% armed citizenry, and they were fighting professional troops (virtually all officers were aristocrats, and they fought for the White Army.) The armed peasants won.
Coming out of a 4-year war they were less "armed peasants" than the Allied forces in WWII were "armed farmers".
Revolution took place in 1917 - after years of fighting in WWI devastated their army and the economy.
That provided both a tired and disgruntled military and a plentiful number of civilians familiar with the use of guns.
19 million went to war - by 1917, 2 million deserted, 1.8 million were killed, 5 million were wounded and 2 more million were prisoners of war.
The Red Guard itself was formed from factory workers, soldiers and sailors - look up the role of the cruiser Aurora in the October Revolution.
Meanwhile, WWI is still ongoing.
Not being an actual, formally trained, centrally commanded army, the Red Guard militia is torn to pieces by the German army.
So, while signing a treaty with the Germans, Soviets formed the Red Army - and started recruiting.
Now the peasants came - but not directly to battle the Whites.
Instead they went to recruitment centers, to be properly trained.
Those "peasants" you speak of were trained recruits, lead by experienced veterans, united under one command - fighting a loose confederation of warlords without central command, leadership or united political goal.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
There's NO WAY these legal gun owners would ever be a threat to the worthless, unethical fucks at this paper (who bloody well know it, too). These scum have already demonstrated that they have no ethics and now they're trying to paint those [they've fucked over] in a negative light, in a shallow attempt to frame the debate and draw attention away from their so-called mistake.
A well regulated militia, at the time of the founding fathers was regulated by congress and received regular training, more akin to a reserve.
Actually, if they were regulated by anything, it would have been by the colony(and later state), but not Congress. And their "regular" training was 15-20 of them getting together on the local town green maybe once a month to march around for an hour or two or following drill from an old British Army manual. Then they took their guns back home and put them in the corner where they would be easily accessible both to put food on the table and for home/town defense. You see, there's this thing about militia that people keep ignoring: they were armed with their own, personal weapons. A militia is a group of people armed with personal weapons for use in local defense only. They were not reserves, not the equivalent to the National Guard. They were intended to supplement military forces during a conflict specifically during local engagements.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Syria, Liberia and to a lesser degree Egypt show how hard it is to overthrow a well armed dictatorship.
Egypt: overthrown.
Syria: almost overthrown.
If anything we are being shown how in modern times any armed group can overthrow even the best armed dictatorship, if they are determined.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...if I flash my sidearm...
You realize that brandishing a weapon is a crime in and of itself in many states? Here's an ironic twist - A DC-based reporter was investigated for allegedly 'brandishing' an illegal high capacity magazine while taping an episode of 'Meet The Press'.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Nice rant. Except that nobody said the "threat" was from a gun owner. In fact, according to the police, there was no credible threat. There was a single reported incident which the police reviewed and declined to investigate any further because it was nothing.
This is a newspaper with an anti-gun owner agenda that kicked up a huge fuss about what even the police called nothing just to get people like you riled up. Congratulations on being a pawn for these tools to use at their leisure.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Actually, the militia was all able-bodied free males aged 16 years and older. Also, well regulated does not mean "controlled". It means well equipped and capable. Further, the Second Amendment's text explicitly states that it is the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Not the right of the government. Not the right of agents of the government. The right of the people.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Hope you enjoy being ass-raped by your totalitarian government. That's your alternative. Because not everything can be settled peacefully, as shown by the civil war. Seriously, go study some history.
C|N>K
How many US citizens would RISK harm to procure freedom. Very few people willingly die for any cause, but many will take significant risk for a cause they believe in.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
Yeah, not sure how regulating the size of the mag is going to make much difference. The Sandy Hook shooter and the Batman shooter both had multiple weapons, anyway, so if one ran out they could just grab the next.
I predicted they would all buy guns, but this is pretty much the same thing.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You tell us you can read the minds of the publisher?
I might as well bite the low-hanging fruit: do you think said publisher would react in the manner as above if their intent was not to antagonize? Do you think they would have not redacted said publication as soon as they realized how it was perceived? You don't have to be a mind-reader to read peoples' reactions. Instead, you apparently claim to be the reactionary mind-reader, considering I stated that I was not prepared to argue any position but the very singular one of ethics that I made, but yet you prattle about things completely unrelated to my argument. Additionally, another post mentioned this, but it bears reiteration: anonymity is powerful. By my observation, those threats don't necessarily originate from gun owners. Unless you're privy to information unbeknownst to the rest of us, I think you might have some soothsayers in your ancestry.
But the truth here is that a gun owner has a huge responsibility that comes with owning a deadly weapon, and they are obligated to be "above" and to be wiser than than others, just as a black belt is obligated to avoid a fight until he or she is attacked.
I believe somebody famous once said that the pen is mightier than the sword. Therefore, would it not be salient that anyone who wields a "pen" (in the sense of public visibility) be even wiser than anyone who wields a "sword"? That's all my query asks, nothing more.
And you create a false equivalency.
Go study some ethics. Or maybe just watch how people act, because that equivalency is very much not false. If we take wisdom and restraint out of the picture, no self-respecting person would ever allow their ego to survive aggression or humiliation without some equal or greater response of force. It's human nature.
Fort Hood was - yes, this seems odd to me too - practically a "gun-free zone", that is, "The Army prohibits soldiers from carrying personal firearms inside Fort Hood and other bases." (Wikipedia). So it's rather that the disarmed members of the military were unable to prevent the murders at Fort Hood, and rather argues for allowing people to carry firearms on the base.
All you have to do is get the pilot before he gets to it. Or when he lands, which will happen eventually. If you don't do it then someone else will. Same concept applies to the rest of the military - at the end of the day its all operated by people, regardless of the equipment.
I love it when the gun nuts start advocating killing American servicemen.
So... you have a problem with that, but not with the anti-gun nut implying the opposite?
Fucking imbecile...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Cops are trained professionals who receive regular firearms practice and are specifically trained in the art of diffusing heated situations
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
Cops are "trained professionals" whose training is precisely like Community College and indeed often happens at such. They take classes, there are quizzes. Many of them don't like guns at all. Many can't shoot worth a fuck. If you browse gun forums where cops hang out you will read more stories about cops being permitted to fail their way to success in their firearms qualifications exams, both in terms of accuracy and basic safety. As it turns out, many LEOs don't actually even know how to operate common firearms, let alone hit anything with them. I'm not going to make any statements about "the vast majority" of cops because I don't know the vast majority of cops, and neither do you which is just another reason I know you're full of shit.
Calling the cops on someone who is threatening to hurt you is not a threat of violence, nor is it a threat of intimidation. Calling the cops is an action of protecting myself, not attacking my attacker.
That is bullshit prevarication and you should know it. The difference is not whether one is an action leading to violence and the other not, because you are clearly threatening them with someone who will subject them to violence. The difference is whether violence on your behalf is justified, not whether it's violence.
Your very own precious second amendment specifically states "a well-regulated militia".
If you want to go back to being required to keep arms and ammunition and keep them in operable condition and know how to hit something with them, I am all for that. I will see you at the range. I expect to get a good laugh out of you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
How do we know they didn't fabricate these threats themselves? Did they even file any police reports? I'm pretty skeptical that any of the CCW owners actually called the newspaper and threatened any of the editors.
You are a complete fool if you believe that you can get a concealed weapons permit in ANY US state without taking a state-approved training program and being evaluated by the state's Highway Patrol.
I live in California. My county is one of the few that actually issues CCWs. But putting that aside; I can get a hunting license over here, which admittedly is a state-approved training program but which has nothing to do with CCW, and then on that basis as a US citizen who is not in trouble with the law in any of a broad variety of ways (like drug abuse, domestic violence, most any felony, etc) I can get a CCW from Florida in the mail. It won't do me any good in California of course, but it does work in some states. There's probably other examples, perhaps some are less egregious.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When we see nations around us performing better than us in some measure, the smart man observes and attempts to learn from their behavior.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I think you are giving the crazy people too much credit. Under ideal conditions, yeah, it ain't that hard. But under stress in conditions that the shooter has never experienced before, seems like there is a reasonable chance of fumbling and even dropping the magazine on the ground.
Dude, they're crazy people. What seems crazy to sane people seems normal to crazy people. Besides, I don't know about you, but as a gun owner I've practiced inserting magazines. Also, I live in California, where we have these mandated limits, and I wound up with a pistol whose magazine accepts eight rounds. In the case that I miss some shots (as you say, we live in an imperfect world, and I'm considering a self-defense case) or drop a magazine, I have a two-mag pouch. :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think geography would be more important than numbers.
Based on the last election and basic demography, the "left" has large quantities of poor people in urban cities. The right has much smaller population densities but controls the Southern coast and large swaths of resource-rich central US.
I would think any protracted stalemate or conflict would leave the left with a large population it couldn't feed and a serious lack of energy resources. The right would have a fairly well-armed indigenous population that could feed itself but may find itself numerically outnumbered.
After a month of conflict it's not hard to see the left struggling to maintain control over a large, poor urban population with inadequate food and energy resources.
The military is the toss-up. They volunteer army has both a large, rural White contingent AND a large Hispanic and African American contingent. It's easy to see a splintering of the military or even possibly sitting out the conflict to avoid division or to maintain external threat protection.
It's hard to see generic Federal armed forces, even in full paramilitary mode, easily dealing with 20 million armed Americans without at least the logistical support of the military if not material and weapons.
The 20 million number is loosely based on 1/3 of Romney's popular vote, minus 5 million who wouldn't participate plus 5 million who wouldn't vote for him because he was too liberal or a Mormon but would be considered to support armed resistance due to their philosophical leanings.
Cops are trained professionals who receive regular firearms practice and are specifically trained in the art of diffusing heated situations.
"Trained professionals"... with an abysmal accuracy rate. My 8 year old nephew is a better shot (OK, that's not fair, he's naturally a better shot than most people I know, but you get the idea).
Calling the cops on someone who is threatening to hurt you is not a threat of violence, nor is it a threat of intimidation. Calling the cops is an action of protecting myself, not attacking my attacker.
We'll ignore, for a moment, the fact that when seconds count, average police response time is 6-10 minutes.
OP stated, "you are calling the cops who will bring guns to protect you. Violence by proxy is still violence." Nothing you've said refutes that.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
And the tolerant left shows itself once again. One of the reasons the USA is a great country is because we allow close minded people like you to have a voice. Gun owners who have legally obtained their firearms are far less likely to break the law.
You're great at strawmen.
Very few liberals fear licensed CCW-holders or law-abiding citizens. What scares us shitless is their cousins, kids, grandkids, roommates, etc.
I'm sorry to hear you've had a bad experience with the law. I'm sure it's affacted your view on police officers negatively.
If you want to go back to being required to keep arms and ammunition and keep them in operable condition and know how to hit something with them, I am all for that. I will see you at the range. I expect to get a good laugh out of you.
Seems to work relatively well for Switzerland. Why don't you do that in the US, instead of the free-for-all you have now?
You should be careful in your assumptions. I may not live in a country that is nearly as gun-happy as the US, but I have shot (mostly rifles) for years and won a few prices here and there. I have plenty of friends who are hunters, including my ex-girlfriend and her entire family.
I know my way around guns, safety etc. etc. Admittedly, most of them have been bolt-action rifles and not handguns, but then again I don't live in a country where people get borderline sexually excited by a Colt 1911.
"Full of shit" right back at ya.
Eat the rich.
With at least regards to Columbine, I don't think it would matter. I was in highschool at the time and I read a lot about the shooting. There were many descriptions of them casually walking about the school, setting off their bombs, reloading, even video of Eric Harris calmly dropping on one knee to take aim and pick people off. I don't think a magazine size restriction would have made any difference to those two.
I'm sorry to hear you've had a bad experience with the law. I'm sure it's affacted your view on police officers negatively.
It's not just me. In any case, this is a U.S. story on a U.S. site so perhaps you could try to stay on topic. If you're going to make declarative statements about "cops" perhaps you could try to take into account the cops in the country that we're talking about. The ones you clearly know fuck-all about.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, perhaps. Sounds like you're getting mad, and I don't want to get shot.
Eat the rich.
you can right now print high cap mags. one time use most likely. you can also make your own from sheet steel and some tin snips in about the same amount of time.
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
I'm having trouble thinking of anything more hypocritical than declaring that other people shouldn't enjoy the right to defend themselves with guns, while defending yourself with guns.
Strawman fallacy. They did not "declare that other people shouldn't enjoy the right to defend themselves with guns"; you invented that to make them easier to attack. They published public lists of gun permit holders.
What would be hypocritical: hiring armed guards and seeking to hide the fact, which they haven't. They've been equally public about hiring the guards as they were publishing the list.
Maybe you could suggest something - I'm at a loss.
You could start by learning the most common logical fallacies, and not using them.
What I find amusing: the gun owners are claiming publishing the list makes them the target of burglaries/robberies, endangering them. Bit odd, considering they own their guns for "home defense", don't you think?
Please help metamoderate.
as opposed to "believed to be incorrect." If I comment "1 = 2, and it's true because I believe it to be so" they are materially incorrect. In my tiny opinion that's can be worse than flamebait because it's blatant, probably even willful ignorance presented as naivety - basically the MO of an attention-whore.
If they say "1 = 2" and provide a mathematical proof, that's an entirely different matter, they are not sparking needless debate.
So, Dave, this is not a matter of viewpoint, but of blatant incorrectness. As /. tries to be a site for grown-ups, I was hoping to add levity to my reply to a brash attention-whore, and maybe suggest an improvement, tongue-in-cheek-wise.
Then again, maybe you disagree and you'd like to see a lot more debate on ID vs Creationism? ;)
Sent from my ENIAC
I mean, they post addresses of child molesters and other sex criminals. Why shouldn't I know who on my block I should worry about - say, if I hear a loud argument, I'll know to call the cops and warn them someone there owns a gun?
Finally, as an old aquaintance once put it, the invasion of Normandy was unneccesary, since it was inevitable that the Wehrmacht would fall to the invincible French Resistance.
And, let's not, all the revolutions going on, the rebels are getting weapons a) from their own military, and/or b) from other countries, not from their own arsenels... unless you're living in Somalia.
And anyone who htinks the initial clause about "a well-regulated militia" has nothing to do with anyone's right to own all the guns they want, of all kinds, is a psychotic asshole (and, by the way, yes, your cock *is* too small).
mark
Too bad you posted as AC, else I'd mod you up. And now that I've posted, I can no longer mod, grrr
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
It depends on how much you think the average person is constrained by inherent morality vs law. As I commented on another post downthread, the Australian gun crime stats were essentially the same before and after gun control was introduced. That implies that the reason people don't shoot each other up isn't because they're afraid of the law.
Pretty much all murders fall into one of two categories: they're either crimes of passion, or part of some wider criminal enterprise. Neither case is going to be deterred by the law, one because they're already violating it, and the other because the action isn't rational to begin with.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
heh, had to google that. haven't read much van vogt if any. maybe i should; thanks.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
as opposed to "believed to be incorrect." If I comment "1 = 2, and it's true because I believe it to be so" they are materially incorrect. In my tiny opinion that's can be worse than flamebait because it's blatant, probably even willful ignorance presented as naivety - basically the MO of an attention-whore.
If they say "1 = 2" and provide a mathematical proof, that's an entirely different matter, they are not sparking needless debate.
But there's nothing in the post you were referring to (at least, I assume it's what prompted you to desire such an option) that was anywhere near "1=2". If you would have modded that post down as "materially incorrect", that just makes me feel even more strongly that such an option should never exist. "Troll" and "Flamebait" get abused far too much as it is. I've seen far too many posts -- including ones I disagree with -- receiving that. If it weren't for the occasional actual racist post, spam, or the threat of something like Goatse.cx returning, I'd just as soon get rid of negative modding entirely. About a third of the time I see "Flamebait", for instance, the moderator apparently thinks it means "I want to flame this person", not "this person is only saying this to generate flames rather than trying to make a point."
And no I don't want more ID/Creationism debates, but I doubt such an option would stop them.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
LOL I will personally give you $1000 if the government starts confiscating pistols and rifles and shotguns, because it is not going to happen and you're just rabidly paranoid
Those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it:
(link)
I wouldn't be so reckless to make promises on behalf of the government. It can change its mind at any time, and what power do you have to influence it? I will save your promise, though, because I can always use a $1K - even if by that time it is only good enough to buy a pack of a chewing gum.
So it's only fair also to publish a list of the reporters that compiled and published that list of gun-owners, also complete with addresses and everything?
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Right. Just because someone is getting mad means you may get shot.
Idiot.
Hint: I hope and pray that I never have to use violence against another, but if I ever do, I want the option available to me. There's nothing noble about being a victim. Especially not if its preventable. Thats just stupidity.
C|N>K
Are the guards they hired on the list they published?
Most people are mostly good most of the time.
Based on the aggressive confrontational tone and personal insults in your posts, I'd wager that you'd be more likely to use a gun in a heated situation than the average man on the street.
It's called anger management, look into it.
Eat the rich.
You lose that wager. In fact I do counseling for others.
You also lose in the fact that I'm unarmed at the moment. The fact that I am unarmed makes me *very* uncomfortable and edgy. I refuse to be a victim.
No, I *don't* trust the gov't, nor do I trust you. Also, your knowledge of guns and the ramifications of ownership seems very spotty at best - did you come in here to start something, or to actually learn about it?
There is already plenty of gun control in the US. The failure at Sandy Hook was the failure to follow accepted gun control practices. If they had been followed then it never would have happened.
And no, you can't take the violence out of humanity. Deal with it.
C|N>K
Lets put it this way: If you want to be an unarmed victim, fine. That's your choice. But leave me out of it, and let me make my own choice. My choice is to arm myself. And the more the anti-gun nuts go on, the more my rights to self-defense are infringed. And that tends to be upsetting.
C|N>K
How nice it would be for the gun lobby if they just turned the other cheek. I see a very real life or death situation. OK
The fact that I am unarmed makes me *very* uncomfortable and edgy
That is a tell-tale sign of having been immersed in a society fuelled by paranoia and fear for far too long. You're literally afraid of being without a gun. In effect, a firearm has become your pacifier.
In other parts of the world, things work a little differently. Outside of TV and games etc., I have never seen a gun brandished in anger. I haven't even seen a gun in real life unless they were at shooting ranges or in the hands of a hunter.
It. Just. Doesn't. Happen. Around. Here.
In fact, we have so few shooting incidents that it's a major media event when ever one happens. In my country in 2012 we had less than 10 shootings. Ten. All of them involving gang-on-gang violence. No home invasions, no attacks on random civilians, no mass shootings at schools or theaters or whatever.
You know why? Because we're not obsessed with firearms, because we have proper gun control in place and because we realize that by putting tools specifically made for hurting and killing other people in the hands of every man too easily, we would only be creating a culture of escalated violence and ensuring the deaths of far too many innocent people.
And you know what? We feel safe. In the countryside, people don't even lock their front doors! It simply isn't necessary.
Eat the rich.
Well obviously, since you live in a culture of fear. Don't you think your history of widely available firearms has escalated your culture to a level where people just don't feel safe any more unless they have a gun in their hand?
I am anti-guns, specifically anti-easily-available-guns. Not because I am a "nut", but because guns are specifically made for hurting and killing. Rifles, shotguns etc. should only ever be in the hands of licensed hunters, and everything else only ever in the hands of trained professionals with proper oversight and regulations.
Eat the rich.
I wondered that myself.
THINK! It's patriotic