The Battle of Athens (2 AUGUST 1946)

[Legbreaker]

... have proven they he the mean to attack us on our own soil an the capability to conduct significant damage in an urban environment.(ie 9/11, fort hood, Mumbai) thus we need the militia just as much now as we did then.

Yeah.....

Militia. THE answer to a hijacked airliner, or attack on a base outside US borders.
Yup, I can see how the average man on the street with his automatic weapon is going to help out there.....

[/sarcasm]

Seriously! How is allowing military grade weapons in the hands of civilians going to stop terrorist actions

[Targan]

Seriously! How is allowing military grade weapons in the hands of civilians going to stop terrorist actions

It is hard for some non-Americans to understand the cost-benefit equations there. Still, none of us deny that it's the choice of Americans to make.If that's what you guys deem works best for you, best of luck to you.

[natehale1971]

Also.. remember what Japanese Admiral Yamaoto said about how big a folly it would be to invade the United States.

[DigTw0Grav3s]

I haven't put much thought into the idea of prolific heavy weapons in civilian hands, but I would agree that any willing American should be allowed the same equipment as a basic rifleman, possibly sans grenades and squad automatics.

The ability to generate hundreds (if not thousands) of platoon-sized units across a country in a time of crisis is a massive strategic deterrent. Anybody who disagrees should take a look at Afghanistan - and I would argue that the Afghans don't have a quarter of the knowledge base built into their culture in the form of veterans, professional law enforcement, and the like.

Those who say that the result would be a bloodbath for the armed citizen are probably right. But consider that the desired end state is not a conventional military victory; your enemy's expenditures simply need to be unsustainable.

[Raellus]

The Only Thing We Have to Fear, is Fear Itself

Are we really worried about foreign invasion Or the government dissolving the republic and instituting widespread martial law Have either happened (excepting the Civil War, and don't get me started on that) since the War of 1812 Er, not really. So what are we so afraid of

This, in my opinion, is the root of American's obsession with guns: fear.

I say this because my own firearms purchases were motivated, in large part, by fear. When I moved out to the country, I moved at least 15 minutes from the nearest law enforcement. A lot can happen in 15 minutes, so I purchased a shotgun so that I could defend my family and myself. That one shotgun turned into a semi-auto pistol (so that the wife could defend herself and the kids, if I'm not around), and then an AR-15 (why).

Americans are afraid of a lot of things. Urban gangs, [illegal] immigrants, terrorists, communists (still), government (in general, but a Democratic Party-led one in particular). Two oceans and a huge nuclear arsenal don't seem to reassure a lot of us. Apparently, owning a couple of high-powered, hi-cap, semi-automatic rifles is just enough to calm the fear. We can mask the fear with the facade of strength. I've got a bunch of guns so I'm tough, independent, and won't take crap from anyone. I won't be a victim. Bring it on.

I'm still trying to figure out what makes us Americans, as a people, so darn afraid.

[stg58fal]

Its not about fear. Its about 'you have the right'. Whether you live in a country that acknowledges that right is another matter entirely. Fortunately, I do. After putting up with crap from the king of Britain for a while, then sending him packing, and with the lessons of history there for anyone to see that actually chose to open their eyes and look, the guys that started this country wanted to avoid the same problems.

Thus the reason that our republic was structured the way it was, as well as the reason for the First and Second Amendments. And the order that the 1st and 2nd are in.

There are no questions about the reason for the 2nd, nor whether military style weapons are included, to anyone who's able to read and comprehend the Declaration of Independence and the writingof f the Founders. The right to keep and bear arms is about resisting tyranny of government, and when it becomes necessary, dissolving said government. It isnt, and never has been, about hunting, or sporting purposes. Sporting purposes didnt even exist as a concept for gun control until the 1960s, when one of our CONgresscritters got ahold of a Nazi gun control law and decided it was a good idea to use against *everyone*, not just juden.

Gun control isnt about firearms; its about control. Making sure that .gov can retain power no matter how abusive they get.

I get a kick out of people from other countries trying to preach to us about our firearm laws. Jealous much I don't preach to you about your insane levels of taxation to support an insane level of welfare programs. Don't tell me how much freedom I should have. If it were up to me, everyone on the planet would have access to whatever they could afford that wasn't a WMD, and any .gov caught making bio or chem weapons would be ripped apart real quick by other nations or their own people.

If you prefer a false sense of safety over any kind of freedom, that's your business. Don't try to take MY freedom, though. That goes double if you live in a complete Nannt-state country. You may have been stupid enough to give up all your rights for a welfare check, but Im not.

If this post is too political or offends a Nanny-stater, good. I hope every topic where someone thousands of miles away tries to tell me whats best for me gets locked, or better yet, deleted. It offends me to have someone telling me how I ahould luve, what freedoms I should have, what level of welfare I should support, and how much government intrusion into my life I should tolerate.

[stg58fal]

Grrrrr...posting things from my phone is such a pain in the ass......

That should say "telling me how I should live".

[Targan]

Whoah, easy there big fella! I was taking a fairly softly softly approach but hey, why bother, right stg58fall LOL! Like I said, it seems to me to be a cost-benefit situation. If the benefits of being able to fend off a hypothetical foreign invasion or government power grab seem to you to outweigh the costs of very real, all-too-regular massacres, that's your call to make. I have no intention of crossing the world's biggest ocean and trying to "take away your freedoms". I''ll be right here in my foolish country, drooling over my welfare cheque and muttering "my preciousss".

[Raellus]

I understand the purpose of the Second Ammendment. It's not such a bad idea, on the face of it. In its proper historical context, it makes a ton of sense. Today, though I'm not so sure.

I've read pro-gun arguments that the Holocaust wouldn't have happened if interwar Germany had had its own version of the Second Ammendment. We'll never know. All I know is that any time some fringe citizen or domestic militia (or cult) group starts getting a little uppity in today's America, the government comes down on them like a ton of bricks (Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc.). No personal arsenal of small arms has proven potent enough to stop The Man, so I'm not sure this whole "we need guns to protect all of our other liberties" argument really holds much water. To go back to the context of the orginal Second Ammendment, King George III's British army didn't have M1A1s or Apache gunships. In the late 18th century, a muzzle-loading musket was the great equalizer. Sorry, but hi-cap, semi-auto rifles are no longer insurance against tyranny.

What's more likely, a foreign invasion of the United States, the implementation of martial law here, or another theater/mall/workplace/school shooting No freedom isn't free, but does a heavily armed populace really make us free either

[Panther Al]

Speaking as a former Class 3 firearms dealer, my view is always going to wind up Pro-Gun.

That being said, the main issue with the talk on bans is that they never work: Columbine happened during the previous ban after all, and look how well that worked out. And do recall, the same political forces behind a new ban was behind prohibition. Once more, look how that turned out.

The NRA is getting a lot of hate for the recommendation they offered: myself, I am not a 100% sure its a good idea. But at least they are offering an idea thats new, and offering up things that may need looking at.

Is violence in games, tv, music, and movies the root problem Of course not. Do they have a part in it Sure. Just as I never took any of my collection of fully automatic silenced weapons and shot some place up, nor will your typical listener of Gangsta Rap, Call of Duty player, or Pulp Fiction fan - but its pretty safe to say they do play a small role - availability of weapons for the one position and then as well so does the role models that popular culture lionises. When you grow up in a place where the local hero's are guys that rob, shoot, and steal, it will have an effect.

But lets look at the argument that no one needs a 30rd magazine. How will not having those prevent anything How will not having a particular style of firearm prevent anything, when all that will happen is the bad guys will find some other tool to use

If you want to ban 30rd mags because no one needs them, then lets ban cars. After all, more kids have been killed by cars doing more than the speed limit than has ever been killed by firearms of any type. So lets ban cars that go faster then 55. Of course, if you suggest this, you'll get rightfully laughed at. But the point is valid.

The left will always do a knee jerk reaction based on "Government Knows Best, and Lets Make a New Law". Sometimes, thats the right answer.

Not this time.

This time the existing laws worked.

Lets look at the Oregon Mall Shooting. The press says the shooter shot himself. What they don't say is what was going on around him. A concealed carry permit holder was drawing down on him, and the shooter, for whatever reason that no one will ever know, decided to turn his gun on himself. If that civilian did not pull on him, I think it would be safe to say that more would have died.

In the case of Newtown, the shooter - and I refuse to mention the names of those that do these crimes as to give my bit to make sure no one will ever remember who he was, after all, in most cases a desire to make a name for themselves to be remembered by is one of the reasons they do this - attempted a few months ago to purchase a firearm. He was turned down because Connecticut has a very strong permitting process that saw his mental health issues and turned him down. Then, you have the fact that his mother was about to have him committed - this is probably what sparked things - because she saw that he needed the help. His mother, who owned the guns purchased them in a State that has very strict gun laws - which means she was someone no one would have to worry about. To get those guns, he had to kill her in her sleep, and then steal them. Something we all agree is unlawful. He then went to a school, a school that according to law, is a gun free zone. Odd, the law was ignored by a bad guy Who would have ever thought that a bad guy will ignore the law

Every step of this tragedy was done by a person who broke the law in *every* step of the process. Nothing he did, nothing at all, was permitted by law.

So how does making new laws going to help

Ban AR15's

They was at Columbine. The bad guys there used 22's.

Ban High Cap Mags Ak's Assualt Weapons in general

Hollywood Shootout.

Yep. Those laws worked fine.



So lets forget new laws that will be ignored.

Lets focus instead on prevention. Lets take a look at what we can do to prevent people, not items, to go down this dark path. Lets fix the People that commit these crimes. Lets bring back personal responsibility. Lets all stop looking for something else to blame things on, be it another person, an organisation, or an inanimate object and accept that in the end...

We have met the Enemy.

And He is Us.

[Targan]

It all comes down to ease of access. The car analogy is both accurate and misleading at the same time. There's a difference between killing someone with a car in a genuine accident, by negligent driving and by deliberate vehicular homicide. But it is true that in most countries with high levels of private vehicle ownership you get significant numbers of deaths in all 3 categories. I suspect the same must be true of firearm deaths. In the US there would be purely accidental shootings, shootings related to poor training/weapon handling and deliberate, illegal shootings.

Then there are the cultural aspects to consider. It seems to me that when a person in a western country like Australia or America gets really pissed off with someone, they will often think of dealing with them with some "9mm medicine". Reason/morality/logic usually prevails but when it doesn't, an illegal shooting is obviously much more likely in a place where there is relatively easy access to firearms. That's just common sense.

As for foreigners telling Americans how to run their affairs, I''ve read back through the posts in this thread and I can't find anything with that vibe. How other countries run their affairs is the business of their own citizens, no one commenting in this thread has suggested otherwise.

[ambrafoxtrot]

been living many years in the States, many years in EU, half of my family here, half there, and I hold both citizenships. Tell you guys what. The Euros don't have a clue on what making a country from scratch is like. All of their nation states, have been made from above; by the elites. The yanks, on the other hand, made the US from bottom up. THEY THE PEOPLE built the country from nothing. They grabbed land from wild beasts, from the natives and transformed wilderness into civilization BY THEMSELVES...single families did it. the US government has always been one or two steps behind hard working people, trying to regulate what THE PEOPLE had already secured. The Euros don't understand what that means. They have been given their land, their civilization and all, as a perk created by their elites; that is why they have the welfare bull embedded in their brains as standard way of life. On the other hand, the Americans have a different attitude towards human organizations. They think COMMUNITY, not government. Unfortunately for them, things are rapidly changing in the States. The freakin government is becoming (both parties) more like the European ones, but THEY THE PEOPLE are reluctant to accept that. The weapons issue falls right into this area. It's a cultural thing. People not used to be helped by governments, reatain in their cultural DNA the convincition that they have to think for themselves, self defense included. In general, I think Americans have the better (more functional) way of thinking: Self responsibility, reliability, credibility, used to be the values that made Americans the most productive, most paid and ultimately happiest people in the world for about a century. The ancient romans had a peak like that, fueled more or less by the same values. I Strongly believe that if America completely loses these values, then America is on its way to the end, and the world will experience more harsh masters again, provided that America will accept to go down silently like UK did. Not at all a certainty.
greetings
ambrafoxtrot.

p.s. I and my group are playing again (after 1 year) the tale'o war twilight 2000 game. Updates on that thread soon to come.

[simonmark6]

Sweeping generalisations, much.

Oh, well, better get back to being a servile lackey of the elites that has been handed everything on a plate...

[Targan]

Ain't no lords and ladies in my country. We started out as a penal colony for cryin' out loud! And as for this notion that the USA is a glorious land of equality and egalitarianism, well let's be honest, thats a very pretty notion but it's a fiction. If you come from money you've got a hell of a lot more chance of leaving this world with money too than if you started with nothing. It's not all that different here, I'm happy to admit that. But the richest of the rich in the US easily rival the wealthiest of the old European nobility, only difference is there's no fancy titles and coats of arms on the walls. The greatest of the modern free market economies worship wealth as a far greater virtue than a fair go for everyone. Call me a hopeless pinko if you like but that's just how it is, for better or for worse. You can have all the guns you want in your back woods bunker but when you go up against the might of real money, private or corporate (or government for that matter) you're little more than chaff in the wind.

As for carving out a civilised nation from a vast untamed land full of beasts and savages, at least for the last couple of thousand years the Europens have been butchering each other on a roughly equal footing. In America (and Australia, and New Zealand, and lots of other former European colonies) "civilising" the land is just a polite euphemism for a technologically and numerically superior people engaging in outright land theft and genocide against the indigenous peoples. In the times of the expanding frontiers in America the European descendants were more likely to be using their guns against the first peoples than each other or other European invaders.

But that's now our history, long past. Much as the circumstances leading to the writing of our various constitutions and their amendments are also long gone. Homesteading and a pioneering spirit 200 years ago doesn't necessarilly automatically result in a political and sociological situation like that in the US.

We've all probably well crossed the line of political ranting by now in this thread and I for my part am sorry for that. I say again, I'm not trying to tell anyone else how their country should be run. But I am calling out hypocrisy and fantasising as I see it. If this is hitting too many raw nerves and generating too much ill-will, I'll stop right here.

[Raellus]

I teach American (and world) history and, although a few of the points ambafoxtrot makes are valid, there's a lot of myth there too. It's also pretty insulting to Europeans. How many revolutions and civil wars have taken place in European countries Ya'll probably don't want a history lesson here so I'll spare you, but sheesh. Let's be fair and accurate, here.

I don't get why so many Americans get so defensive when people criticize its institutions. America is not perfect. America can't get better unless we, the people, recognize and acknowledge its faults. Only then can we work together to fix it. There's too much partisanship and finger pointing. The "love it or leave it" attitude is dangerous.