The command module was angled specifically to slow it down, and was already decelerating when it did so. Meteor Crater wasn't going terribly fast until it got captured by earth's gravity. (Which involves coming fairly close... not like something accelerated directly at us.)
So let's expand it. It now masses several tons. Which means it's about 4-5 meters in diameter. We're STILL at the point where nobody's got any way to STOP it.
Our beloved 'Missle Defense Shield' can't hit a missle 2-3 times that size going at a fraction of the speed without GPS help.
The meteors that burn up in the atmosphere are the size of sand grains. It's just a matter of size. Even 100 kilos would be essentially impossible to target, and would still have plenty of mass left when it hit the ground. (At some small but measurable fraction of C.)
You're still trying to stop a bullet by hitting it with a thrown rock.
Why didn't we? Because neither of us had the technology at the time to do it effectively. This is changing.
Also, people just don't pay attention. Heinlein warned people about this forty years ago... and was basically ignored by the Powers That Be. It's not something people take seriously.
Oh, and a missle that could hit the moon? Doesn't exist. We could jury rig one together with a decent sized rocket, but piloting it would be a non-trivial issue. If nothing else it would be amazingly expensive and by the time we got it set up, NASA's facilities would no longer exist.
Remember, we have to work against gravity and atmosphere. Anyone IN that position gets to work WITH gravity, and the moon doesn't have enough atmosphere to be a factor. (Few traces of some of the heavier gasses, but nothing worth mentioning. It's close enough to being hard vaccum to call it that.)
Our nuclear arsenal? Useless. Unless you want to start justifying nuking any country that wants to go to the moon before they get there? After all... we don't KNOW that they're (generic 'they,' not referring specifically to China here) going to do this... there ARE legitimate civilian reasons to go to the moon, after all.
'Do as we say or we'll destroy you. It's cheap, it's simple, (after all, we've already built the base, and rocks are just lying around out here...) and you can't really shoot back.'
A DEcelerating object that didn't fall nearly as far, yes. It also mostly disintegrated. (Some sizeable pieces, but not many.)
The Shuttle was decelerating for reentry, and had come from a fraction of the distance. From near orbit, atmosphere can be a substantial factor. From lunar orbit? You're talking about a few kilometers of air over the course of a several hundred thousand kilometer trip. It's a factor, but a barely noticeable one.
Assuming one could track it, how exactly are you going to stop a 50 kilo rock? How are you going to HIT something that small, assuming you want to blow it out of space?
Even a 50, hell even a 10 kilo rock would have a massive blast radius at that velocity.
Aiming, while not completely trivial, is just a factor of math.
No it isn't. Not that you could ever hit anything except maybe at close range by "firing from the hip" in the first place, but a traditional hunting stock would be easier to shoot from that position. Firing a rifle with any appreciable recoil in that position with a pistol grip could break your wrist.
Once again, suppressive fire doesn't require much accuracy. Neither does firing into a mob. Give someone a large enough target, or downplay the importance of actually hitting anything specific, and it doesn't matter whether you're firing from the shoulder or the hip. Except that the hip lets you sweep back and forth quickly.
The "trigger and firing mechanisms" of these weapons are just self-loaders ("semi-auto") whose engineering principles have been around for well over 100 years. As far as 'how easy it is to modify the weapon to allow fully automatic fire', BATF regulations already define a firearm that can be easily converted (less than 8 hours of machine shop time; about the time a sub-machine gun could be fabricated from scratch) to full-auto as already being a full-auto firearm.
Yes, and some are made to cycle faster than others, thus allowing someone to pump out more shots more quickly even without modifying the weapon. This is a combat use. Not something one would use to defend against a burglar. You wanna be a soldier? Join the military. The rest of us don't want to deal with your friendly fire.
And as a full-auto weapon it's also designed for suppressive fire. Like most military weapons it has multiple uses.
The tommy gun was designed for similar purposes. The 100 round drum you see in gangster movies was rarely used because it was a pain in the ass. Most use (including military use) wasn't all that different from the M16. (Although the M16 is more accurate and gets more sniping use as a result. Natrual progression.)
Yes, full auto and magazine extenders exist for pistols as well.... and are rarely used, (see the previous pain in the ass comment.) Yes it's possible to make a full auto pistol. Sig even makes one for military use. All are rarely used, because to make it worthwhile you have to have a magazine large enough to make the weapon a pain in the ass to use. (And pretty much negates the concealment factor.) Overall, most people don't bother.
Idiot. Rights are for the exercise of individuals, not "societies". Your collectivist interpretation of "rights" makes no sense; if you need the consent of everyone around you to perform an action, it is a privilege, not a right.
And what is a society?
Oh yeah, it's a collection of individuals.
You have rights in this society. Those rights may be exercised UNTIL they begin to infringe on the rights of others. Meaning, (to put it in terms your fundamentally underdeveloped and hormone poisoned brian can understand) your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
Clearly you're too stupid to understand this concept. If you think you need these weapons, you can't be trusted with them. These weapons are designed for combat. Period. End of story. No amount of propaganda will change this fact. Some people, (we call them soldiers) have a legitimate reason for this. You do not. ('I wanna look like a tough guy' isn't a legitimate reason from our perspective. Your insecurities about your penis aren't sufficient reason for us to risk allowing you to have a weapon like this.) We as a society DO have the right to pass laws to protect our safety from idiots like you, and we WILL exercise that right.
Idiot. If small arms were not worthwhile in mordern combat, they wouldn't be issued to troops today. You have no clue about the effectiveness of small arms, and their role in an insurgency, even today, would be quite useful. No one would expect a resistance to tyranny to be an early 20th century style battle.
Actually they can be quite effective... if you have specific training in how to use them and have sufficient cover. Oh, and if you AREN'T facing APC's and tanks. News flash.... Rambo's a myth. Yes yes, I know that's hard to understand and totally devastates your self-image.... but it's true. Charge a tank brandishing a machine gun, and you're going to die.
Life isn't an action movie.
No, you dumbass. "Assault rifles" are fully automatic (usually selective fire) rifles. "Assault weapons" are not full auto weapons, they are merely semi-autos that "look bad" (usually based on the same improved ergonomics of true assault rifles). It is commonly referred to as the 'assult rifle ban' (sic) only by ignorant idiots who don't understand the difference or deliberate deceivers who don't want others to understand the difference.
And it's exactly these same ergonomics that make these weapons more dangerous and require specific training and control. As I mentioned in another post, the bullpup/pistol grip, easy modification to full auto, and high capacity magazines are designed for suppressive fire or for shooting into a crowd. You don't need this capability, and we don't want you to have it. (Because clearly you're stupid and hotheaded enough to use it.) Again, focusing on minutae is the sign of a weak argument.
Argh. You IDIOT! They were going from shop to shop firebombing! "A decent door lock" didn't do anything to stop the looters until the Koreans showed they were willing to use force to defend themselves. These people were not "like most thieves"; they were as interested in destruction as they were in looting, and were blaming the Koreans for their economic woes just like 1930s Germans blamed the Jews.
You can show force just as well with a Glock as you can with an AK. If you need 30 shots to kill someone, you can't be trusted with a gun.
As interested in destruction as they were.... isn't it funny how they managed to not destroy anything valuable that they wanted?
Even with the AKs, the Koreans still had to fire multiple warning shots (an option that would not have been available with lower capacity weapons) just to keep the firebombers away. If the brandishing of an AK didn't stop them, showing them a pistol certainly wouldn't have done so.
And your attitude again clearly shows you can't be trusted with firearms. You don't have th
China doesn't have much reason to do so, and most of the paranoia about China ignores the fact that they'd be cutting their own throats economically if they attacked us in any way. But the possibility is still there.... after all it's a way of attacking more or less free from retribution. Once there's a lunar base, the concept of MAD goes more or less out the window.
The retaliation would be against China, Beijing or Shanghai say (preferably not Hong Kong, since I live there). As for the moon being out of range, no. A nuclear warhead is pretty small, and easily delivered to the moon. The Pentagon would have that worked out as soon as any kind of Chinese base was actually started.
And what do you suppose such a base's first target would be?
Remember.... rocks are cheap. They could throw a huge number of them. Bye bye response capability. I'll admit that holding China hostage would be a decent tactic.... unless the base severed connections or was staffed by people chosen because they had no families back on earth.
That is a stupid statement; showing that you have no clue what a right even is.
Baseless emotionalist statements. Possibly instead of simply ranting, you could make a point? Such as if there is such a thing as an absolute right, list it?
Societies don't have rights. There's no such thing as a "collective" right under the Constitution. Collectively, governments or "societies" only have powers, and the Constitution is very clear that the only legitimate powers that can be exercised are those that are explicitly delegated to government. The right to regulate firearms is not one of those powers. Again, you don't have the faintest clue what a right even is.
Society is a collection of individuals. As such, the rights of individuals extend to society as a whole, where they apply. Now.... again instead of mindless rhetoric and emotional hooks.... possibly you could explain how you having an AK makes you part of any 'well regulated militia?'
Yeah I didn't think so.
And for the third time, you show how clueless you are. The founders didn't put the 2nd amendment in the Constitution because the were "manly"; they put it there because they were smarter than you, and realized the importance of an armed citizenry. And assault rifles weren't banned by the 1994 so-called law; assualt weapons were (that you don't know the difference again shows how completely ignorant you are on the subject; "assault weapons" that are also rifles are not "assault rifles").
The Founders added in the Second for any number of reasons. For one thing there was a much more level playing field between soldiers and civilians at the time. (A pennsylvania rifle was a pennsylvania rifle, after all. Combat was much simpler.) At the time, an armed revolt against an oppressive state was an option. This was before people developed little toys like RPG's and heavy machine guns. As big and bad as you may think you are, you have no chance at all against a column of armed and armored troops in the modern age. Get over it.
Yes, some non-rifles (with essentially the same features as the assault rifles) were also banned, and for the same reasons. The ban is still commonly referred to as the 'assult rifle ban.' Excessive anal retentiveness about minutae is a sign of a weak core argument. Might want to look into that.
And in addition to being a moron, you prove that your memory is defective as well. It was only the last decade when the Korean shopkeepers in LA had to use these very same weapons to defend their lives and their property during the riots (the same riots where both police and fire departments refused to go into those areas of the city). The large magazine capacity of these weapons allowed those Korean americans to defend themselves against a mob (all without killing those threatening them either, for that matter).
...as is resorting to personal attacks. At any point here I could have called you a simpering weakling for posting AC... I could have said that your compulsive need for military weapons was compensation for a deep seated inferiority complex related to an undersized penis. I could have made tinfoil hat and black helicopter jokes.... If I were being mean.:)
The fact is that the case you cite didn't require such weapons. A pistol and a decent door lock would be more than adequate. In that sense they're like most thieves. If you have ANY gun and look like you have any sort of clue as to how to use it, they'll move on to someone who doesn't.
Look more scary? Possibly. However, the reason they do is because of the features that make them more dangerous.
Pistol grip/bullpup design is included so that the weapon can be fired from the hip as easily (or nearly as easily) as from the shoulder.
Extra capacity magazines are included so that one doesn't have to reload as often.
Trigger and firing mechanisms that are built for rapid fire (this doesn't even get into 'how easy is it to modify the weapon to allow fully automatic fire) are intended to spray large amounts of bullets.
It's not a question of 'it looks scary' however much some people may want to portray it that way.
Yes, China could nuke the US. Thing is.... we can shoot back. A chinese colony on the moon? Is out of range by a hell of a long way.
There's also the cost factor to worry about. An atomic missle is an extremely delicate, precise and expensive piece of hardware.
Rocks are cheap.
'The first nation to establish a permanent presence on the moon will determine the course of human history.' - Robert Heinlein (paraphrased from memory so the quote may not be exact.)
You are either a liar or a fool. The 1994 rifle ban was the first gun ban in the U.S. not based on the U.S. government's taxing authority (until it, other gun control laws were really tax laws. For example, NFA didn't ban machine guns, it just required a $200 tax). As such an expansion of government authority, it quite certainly did weaken the 2nd amendment. The 2nd amendment doesn't say that guns can't be banned, it says the right can't even be infringed. A total ban on several company's models (even ignoring that this was a bill of attainder; also illegal under the Constitution) is most certainly an infringement.
There is no such thing as an absolute right. You have the right to keep a weapon. As a society we have the right to limit your access to specific types of weapons that you have no particular legitimate use for and that are designed for purposes that in civil society can only be considered nefarious.
If you think that having an assault rifle makes you somehow more manly, that's your issue. The rest of us have a right to not have to deal with the results. People who want to defend themselves can. The weapons banned under these laws aren't defensive, and were never intended to be.
Nah, it's that the presidency before the current one already did everything possible to destroy the second ammendment, nothing left to do there really.
Pffft. So we have registration and limitations on some KINDS of weapons. (In general, ones which ARE specifically designed not simply to kill people, but to kill large numbers of people, as quickly and as messily as possible.) Big deal. Hell I don't trust most people with sharp objects. Clinton didn't weaken the Second Amendment. You still have the right to keep a weapon, unless you're a felon or have been diagnosed with mental illnesses that make you prone to violence. In that case we're entirely within our rights to not trust you with the means to kill.
And who says the ACLU doesn't have power, heck, I'm afraid to say *anything* about my personal beliefs, for fear of getting sued by them for infringing on somebody else's right to not hear my beliefs.
This says more about right-wing propaganda than anything else. Unless you're highly placed enough to force those beliefs on others, (such as employees) you have nothing to worry about. Pat Robertson, however, would have people believe that there are ACLU lawyers hiding behind every tree waiting to persecute good conservative Americans for 'speaking their minds.' Well if 'speaking your mind' involves faux-optional bible study groups at work, pushing a particular political opinion at your employees, (or students if you're a teacher) workplace racism or homophobia, or other things of that nature, then expect a call from the ACLU. If not, you have nothing to worry about. It really is that simple.
Your fear of the ACLU's 'power' says more about how effective the other side's propaganda has been than about the ACLU itself.
Dominant western religious thought teaches that people are inherently evil and that left to their own devices deserve to be tortured... forever. It also teaches that only the act of grovelling before the image of a mass murdering tyrant will save humanity from this richly deserved fate.
Hell YES teaching this to a child is evil. It's child abuse.
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And this thing has over 300,000 km to accelerate in.
The last few kilometers of earth's atmosphere are negligible as far as drag is concerned unless you're intentionally taking advantage of them.
So let's expand it. It now masses several tons. Which means it's about 4-5 meters in diameter. We're STILL at the point where nobody's got any way to STOP it.
Our beloved 'Missle Defense Shield' can't hit a missle 2-3 times that size going at a fraction of the speed without GPS help.
You're still trying to stop a bullet by hitting it with a thrown rock.
Also, people just don't pay attention. Heinlein warned people about this forty years ago... and was basically ignored by the Powers That Be. It's not something people take seriously.
Oh, and a missle that could hit the moon? Doesn't exist. We could jury rig one together with a decent sized rocket, but piloting it would be a non-trivial issue. If nothing else it would be amazingly expensive and by the time we got it set up, NASA's facilities would no longer exist.
Remember, we have to work against gravity and atmosphere. Anyone IN that position gets to work WITH gravity, and the moon doesn't have enough atmosphere to be a factor. (Few traces of some of the heavier gasses, but nothing worth mentioning. It's close enough to being hard vaccum to call it that.)
Our nuclear arsenal? Useless. Unless you want to start justifying nuking any country that wants to go to the moon before they get there? After all... we don't KNOW that they're (generic 'they,' not referring specifically to China here) going to do this... there ARE legitimate civilian reasons to go to the moon, after all.
News flash... the reason the moon is attractive in this case is you don't HAVE to throw it very hard.
You drop it. Gravity takes care of the rest.
Earth's gravitational acceleration is ~9.8 m/s^2.
The moon is (on average) about 375,000km away.
Do the math.
'Do as we say or we'll destroy you. It's cheap, it's simple, (after all, we've already built the base, and rocks are just lying around out here...) and you can't really shoot back.'
The Shuttle was decelerating for reentry, and had come from a fraction of the distance. From near orbit, atmosphere can be a substantial factor. From lunar orbit? You're talking about a few kilometers of air over the course of a several hundred thousand kilometer trip. It's a factor, but a barely noticeable one.
Shooting them down would be a lot like trying to stop a bullet by throwing a rock at it.
Even a 50, hell even a 10 kilo rock would have a massive blast radius at that velocity.
Aiming, while not completely trivial, is just a factor of math.
Once again, suppressive fire doesn't require much accuracy. Neither does firing into a mob. Give someone a large enough target, or downplay the importance of actually hitting anything specific, and it doesn't matter whether you're firing from the shoulder or the hip. Except that the hip lets you sweep back and forth quickly.
The "trigger and firing mechanisms" of these weapons are just self-loaders ("semi-auto") whose engineering principles have been around for well over 100 years. As far as 'how easy it is to modify the weapon to allow fully automatic fire', BATF regulations already define a firearm that can be easily converted (less than 8 hours of machine shop time; about the time a sub-machine gun could be fabricated from scratch) to full-auto as already being a full-auto firearm.
Yes, and some are made to cycle faster than others, thus allowing someone to pump out more shots more quickly even without modifying the weapon. This is a combat use. Not something one would use to defend against a burglar. You wanna be a soldier? Join the military. The rest of us don't want to deal with your friendly fire.
The tommy gun was designed for similar purposes. The 100 round drum you see in gangster movies was rarely used because it was a pain in the ass. Most use (including military use) wasn't all that different from the M16. (Although the M16 is more accurate and gets more sniping use as a result. Natrual progression.)
Yes, full auto and magazine extenders exist for pistols as well.... and are rarely used, (see the previous pain in the ass comment.) Yes it's possible to make a full auto pistol. Sig even makes one for military use. All are rarely used, because to make it worthwhile you have to have a magazine large enough to make the weapon a pain in the ass to use. (And pretty much negates the concealment factor.) Overall, most people don't bother.
You miss the point. They drop, let's say 500 carefully targeted 50 kilo rocks. After this, we HAVE no launch capability.
Idiot. Rights are for the exercise of individuals, not "societies". Your collectivist interpretation of "rights" makes no sense; if you need the consent of everyone around you to perform an action, it is a privilege, not a right.
And what is a society?
Oh yeah, it's a collection of individuals.
You have rights in this society. Those rights may be exercised UNTIL they begin to infringe on the rights of others. Meaning, (to put it in terms your fundamentally underdeveloped and hormone poisoned brian can understand) your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
Clearly you're too stupid to understand this concept. If you think you need these weapons, you can't be trusted with them. These weapons are designed for combat. Period. End of story. No amount of propaganda will change this fact. Some people, (we call them soldiers) have a legitimate reason for this. You do not. ('I wanna look like a tough guy' isn't a legitimate reason from our perspective. Your insecurities about your penis aren't sufficient reason for us to risk allowing you to have a weapon like this.) We as a society DO have the right to pass laws to protect our safety from idiots like you, and we WILL exercise that right.
Idiot. If small arms were not worthwhile in mordern combat, they wouldn't be issued to troops today. You have no clue about the effectiveness of small arms, and their role in an insurgency, even today, would be quite useful. No one would expect a resistance to tyranny to be an early 20th century style battle.
Actually they can be quite effective... if you have specific training in how to use them and have sufficient cover. Oh, and if you AREN'T facing APC's and tanks. News flash.... Rambo's a myth. Yes yes, I know that's hard to understand and totally devastates your self-image.... but it's true. Charge a tank brandishing a machine gun, and you're going to die.
Life isn't an action movie.
No, you dumbass. "Assault rifles" are fully automatic (usually selective fire) rifles. "Assault weapons" are not full auto weapons, they are merely semi-autos that "look bad" (usually based on the same improved ergonomics of true assault rifles). It is commonly referred to as the 'assult rifle ban' (sic) only by ignorant idiots who don't understand the difference or deliberate deceivers who don't want others to understand the difference.
And it's exactly these same ergonomics that make these weapons more dangerous and require specific training and control. As I mentioned in another post, the bullpup/pistol grip, easy modification to full auto, and high capacity magazines are designed for suppressive fire or for shooting into a crowd. You don't need this capability, and we don't want you to have it. (Because clearly you're stupid and hotheaded enough to use it.) Again, focusing on minutae is the sign of a weak argument.
Argh. You IDIOT! They were going from shop to shop firebombing! "A decent door lock" didn't do anything to stop the looters until the Koreans showed they were willing to use force to defend themselves. These people were not "like most thieves"; they were as interested in destruction as they were in looting, and were blaming the Koreans for their economic woes just like 1930s Germans blamed the Jews.
You can show force just as well with a Glock as you can with an AK. If you need 30 shots to kill someone, you can't be trusted with a gun.
As interested in destruction as they were.... isn't it funny how they managed to not destroy anything valuable that they wanted?
Even with the AKs, the Koreans still had to fire multiple warning shots (an option that would not have been available with lower capacity weapons) just to keep the firebombers away. If the brandishing of an AK didn't stop them, showing them a pistol certainly wouldn't have done so.
And your attitude again clearly shows you can't be trusted with firearms. You don't have th
China doesn't have much reason to do so, and most of the paranoia about China ignores the fact that they'd be cutting their own throats economically if they attacked us in any way. But the possibility is still there.... after all it's a way of attacking more or less free from retribution. Once there's a lunar base, the concept of MAD goes more or less out the window.
And what do you suppose such a base's first target would be?
Remember.... rocks are cheap. They could throw a huge number of them. Bye bye response capability. I'll admit that holding China hostage would be a decent tactic.... unless the base severed connections or was staffed by people chosen because they had no families back on earth.
That is a stupid statement; showing that you have no clue what a right even is.
Baseless emotionalist statements. Possibly instead of simply ranting, you could make a point? Such as if there is such a thing as an absolute right, list it?
Societies don't have rights. There's no such thing as a "collective" right under the Constitution. Collectively, governments or "societies" only have powers, and the Constitution is very clear that the only legitimate powers that can be exercised are those that are explicitly delegated to government. The right to regulate firearms is not one of those powers. Again, you don't have the faintest clue what a right even is.
Society is a collection of individuals. As such, the rights of individuals extend to society as a whole, where they apply. Now.... again instead of mindless rhetoric and emotional hooks.... possibly you could explain how you having an AK makes you part of any 'well regulated militia?'
Yeah I didn't think so.
And for the third time, you show how clueless you are. The founders didn't put the 2nd amendment in the Constitution because the were "manly"; they put it there because they were smarter than you, and realized the importance of an armed citizenry. And assault rifles weren't banned by the 1994 so-called law; assualt weapons were (that you don't know the difference again shows how completely ignorant you are on the subject; "assault weapons" that are also rifles are not "assault rifles").
The Founders added in the Second for any number of reasons. For one thing there was a much more level playing field between soldiers and civilians at the time. (A pennsylvania rifle was a pennsylvania rifle, after all. Combat was much simpler.) At the time, an armed revolt against an oppressive state was an option. This was before people developed little toys like RPG's and heavy machine guns. As big and bad as you may think you are, you have no chance at all against a column of armed and armored troops in the modern age. Get over it.
Yes, some non-rifles (with essentially the same features as the assault rifles) were also banned, and for the same reasons. The ban is still commonly referred to as the 'assult rifle ban.' Excessive anal retentiveness about minutae is a sign of a weak core argument. Might want to look into that.
And in addition to being a moron, you prove that your memory is defective as well. It was only the last decade when the Korean shopkeepers in LA had to use these very same weapons to defend their lives and their property during the riots (the same riots where both police and fire departments refused to go into those areas of the city). The large magazine capacity of these weapons allowed those Korean americans to defend themselves against a mob (all without killing those threatening them either, for that matter).
The fact is that the case you cite didn't require such weapons. A pistol and a decent door lock would be more than adequate. In that sense they're like most thieves. If you have ANY gun and look like you have any sort of clue as to how to use it, they'll move on to someone who doesn't.
Pistol grip/bullpup design is included so that the weapon can be fired from the hip as easily (or nearly as easily) as from the shoulder.
Extra capacity magazines are included so that one doesn't have to reload as often.
Trigger and firing mechanisms that are built for rapid fire (this doesn't even get into 'how easy is it to modify the weapon to allow fully automatic fire) are intended to spray large amounts of bullets.
It's not a question of 'it looks scary' however much some people may want to portray it that way.
Yes, China could nuke the US. Thing is.... we can shoot back. A chinese colony on the moon? Is out of range by a hell of a long way.
There's also the cost factor to worry about. An atomic missle is an extremely delicate, precise and expensive piece of hardware.
Rocks are cheap.
'The first nation to establish a permanent presence on the moon will determine the course of human history.' - Robert Heinlein (paraphrased from memory so the quote may not be exact.)
There is no such thing as an absolute right. You have the right to keep a weapon. As a society we have the right to limit your access to specific types of weapons that you have no particular legitimate use for and that are designed for purposes that in civil society can only be considered nefarious.
If you think that having an assault rifle makes you somehow more manly, that's your issue. The rest of us have a right to not have to deal with the results. People who want to defend themselves can. The weapons banned under these laws aren't defensive, and were never intended to be.
Pffft. So we have registration and limitations on some KINDS of weapons. (In general, ones which ARE specifically designed not simply to kill people, but to kill large numbers of people, as quickly and as messily as possible.) Big deal. Hell I don't trust most people with sharp objects. Clinton didn't weaken the Second Amendment. You still have the right to keep a weapon, unless you're a felon or have been diagnosed with mental illnesses that make you prone to violence. In that case we're entirely within our rights to not trust you with the means to kill.
And who says the ACLU doesn't have power, heck, I'm afraid to say *anything* about my personal beliefs, for fear of getting sued by them for infringing on somebody else's right to not hear my beliefs.
This says more about right-wing propaganda than anything else. Unless you're highly placed enough to force those beliefs on others, (such as employees) you have nothing to worry about. Pat Robertson, however, would have people believe that there are ACLU lawyers hiding behind every tree waiting to persecute good conservative Americans for 'speaking their minds.' Well if 'speaking your mind' involves faux-optional bible study groups at work, pushing a particular political opinion at your employees, (or students if you're a teacher) workplace racism or homophobia, or other things of that nature, then expect a call from the ACLU. If not, you have nothing to worry about. It really is that simple.
Your fear of the ACLU's 'power' says more about how effective the other side's propaganda has been than about the ACLU itself.
Among other uses. Free use of music and video files is a perfectly legitimate use.
Yet you fail to explain exactly where I might be 'wrong.' What a surprise.
So.... none of the above religions teach that humanity is inherently evil and requires salvation?
The concept of Original Sin. IE You are inherently rebellious and evil due to Eve.
Go back to your apologist boards where people don't question the dominant religious teachings.
Hell YES teaching this to a child is evil. It's child abuse.
I hate watching TV with my finger on the volume button waiting for the commercials.