people die all the time. it's what we do.
we are born then we live and then we die.

if a dad killed his child while cleaning a gun then that is his fucking fault, not the gun's fault. only a brain dead moron cleans a loaded gun.

"common sense" is the delusions people live by when thye choose not to actually analyze the situations.


"Common sense is the collections of prejudices acquired by age 18" - Albert Einstein

"common sense" is the phrase used y people who wishe to have you believe what they beleive. it is "common" to them and those that think like them.


gun ownership is "common sense" in the inner city

gun control/restriction is "common sense" to those who have no need for guns.

"common sense" tells us the world is flat you know...

"common sense" was why everyone just assumed that white europeans are the highest evolved humans, and why africans were the closest to the base animals and therefore lesser creatures in the eyes of "god"

fuck common sense.

so why give a shit, that's what you're saying. do you really understand what you're saying? because i'm honestly shocked with what your post seems to imply.

I kind of think you wouldn't have the same attitude if any of this affected you or any of your loved ones, but is that how things ended up being? is it so individualistic that you can't be bothered trying to pretend you care about other people's lives?

people die all the time - wtf is that supposed to mean?

should brain dead morons have guns? as a RIGHT? i think that's kind of like the point some people are trying to make.

Only a brain-dead constitution not just allows but actively encourages a state's brain-dead citizens to possess something with which they might accidentally kill their son. It's still not the same as cars. Or knives. Or tobacco. Or jaunty dancing.

the constitution doesn't actively encourage-- it says "the right of the people to bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED".

but there's the whole militia clause. read it. the interpretation is not in the constitution itself, it's in the supreme court and how 9 judges read that thing.

no states that i know have a militia. there's the national guard, but that's a military thing done by civilians who serve once a month, then get conscripted into going to the middle east (sucks.)

switzerland on the other hand has a well-regulated militia. i mean the whole country is an army, not just with their little red knives but they all have automatic weapons at home.

so it's not the guns.

it's the social inequities, the gangs (half of the murders in LA are gang related-- dealers battling for turf), poverty, saturday night specials (cheap guns for quickie crimes), robberies and muggings and carjackings and drugs, mostly. then again saturday night specials are used for self-defense by poor people in high-crime neighborhoods...

maybe guns in a country with such income disparities is a bad mix but it's not one that was created on purpose and it's certainly difficult to disassemble in this political climate. because the greater the unrest, the more people want their guns.

here it's knives that get a bad reputation by the way. "a thug's weapon". guns are gentlemanly & honorable. back home in my 3rd world ghetto guns are considered a weapon of cowards-- you wanna kill someone you get close to them & do the deed. but here, no-- it's a different ethos.

all countries have their own problems. why don't we start criticizing england's horrible class structure and how people keep you in place by your accent. the government should ban social classes. ha ha ha!

ok, though i'd like to see guns more regulated & traceable to owners, it's inconceivable that the american government will ban guns in the foreseeable future. it shows a lack of imagination for foreigners to make such comments, i.e., assuming that all societies and governments are the same. kinda like the argument against banning burqas in france-- americans don't get it that the french do it in the name of equality. etc. etc.

anyway, some of the best guns are european-- berettas, glocks, kalashnikov rifles...

i guess the best one could hope for is that the country one lives in is a good fit for one's values. the idea of a world government and the homogenization of social life may be appealing, but only on the surface.

anyway, i've argued long enough and i'm tired. agree to disagree, etc.

thats not entirely accurate, a lot of the economic and political disparities are especially intentional, it benefits the businesses, the police state and the military industrial complex.


no my brother you got it all twisted.. those of us intimately acquanted with both guns and especially the threat of gun violence all are intuitively and deeply aware that there is no need for a gun. It is not those people who are safe and unexperienced with gun violence who believe in gun control, in fact most people who have never dealt with the trauma of gun violence first hand are the first to have no problems with gun ownership, it is those of us who have been shot at, who have friends and family with bullet holes, and who have had to bury our folks in the cemeteries, we are the ones who are truly against guns and it is indeed common sense to us that they are useless tools of devastation and human destruction :(

tear drops and closed caskets..

I don't care what the constitution says, to be honest, but I've heard plenty of Americans yark on about it to the point where what it actually says and what it effectively means seem legions apart.

The thing with abolishing the class structure is that there's no actual part of British law that says anything about it. It's engrained in our collective psyche, it's not a physical object like a gun.

It is the guns, but it's the guns in the culture. Like you say, the Swiss don't have a problem, because they're treated like adults. You heavily restrict the guns and America still has massive social disparity problems, but they don't manifest those problems in frequent homicides.

I know there's a big point to be made about non-Americans commenting on a culture they don't understand, but on the other hand, it genuinely baffles the rest of the world. The English have cricket, but that doesn't kill people.

what im saying is that the constitution doesn't say that the people shall live in ghettos where pistols shall abound. i'm answering to "retarded constitution". context, man. ok i gotta get off the computer--enjoy the evening.

exactly, for all intents and purposes, the constitution used to acknowledge Africans as 3/5 a human being (and that was only men, african women weren't human at all, but strictly property)
I have never honored the constitution for shit, I'd sooner wipe my ass with it then respect as it has been and still remains a facade of idealism and a bunch of lies written by a bunch of crooks who only intended to dupe us into allowing the to reign over us in the veiled guise of a supposed democracy..
exactly. the laws and legislation are not the problem, it is the social climate and societal norms and behaviors that support and even demand such legislation. With arizona sb1070, it was not the law itself that is the problem, it is the climate of fervent racism and xenophobia with supports such a proposition in the first place, and even though the feds shut it down, the racism remains virulent and is in fact even more dangerous than before because it has been instigated towards more action..

in america you must change the climate where americans feel they need to have guns for safety and security, when in reality those guns are the very thing which threatens the safety of the people. as long as the people want and believe they have to have guns, then they will continue to have the opportunities to shoot each other over misunderstandings and over-reactions..

Once again, you're right. We the ones who have had to see that kind of like on a daily basis are the ones saying it's enough of this. We - the ones more vulnerable to have a gun pointed at us (and I DID more than once) are the ones saying it would be WORSE if I had one.

i guess most of us who live in a constant terror of what guns can REALLY do just wish there could be less and less of that.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy to talk about how "EVERYONE DIES THATS WHAT THEY DO" when you're not REALLY worried you're the next.

amen.

the problem is that people have to have been confronted with gun violence to understand it, and that is a tragedy in an of itself, because I don't want anyone to have to deal with it PERIOD, let alone just to prove a point. I'll keep my skeletons in the closet on this one, but from my own direct experience, guns in all their aspects fucking suck.

suchfriends,

i love you.







(but you're still white, sorry).

brutherford--

just popped back to say this is EXACTLY what you're missing. the gun is engrained in the collective american psyche-- it cannot be legislated out!

right now, in virginia, it is legal to pack a gun in the open. so people are walking around like it's the wild west. it makes people uncomfortable (it would make me uncomfortable as fuck if i'm on a bus and some random dude comes in with a 9mm pistol on a holster), but that's the fucking state law AND the ethos of a large part of the public.

it took me a long time to understand this, especially living in a big city in the east, until i moved out west & saw people handle guns on a regular basis. my wife's parent's house is a small fucking arsenal. there's a magnum revolver, a 12 or 14 gauge shotgun, various rifles, a musket... when my wife left for college her dad gave her a little one-shot 22 to carry with her.

anyway, remember this: engrained in the psyche. it's like the english and their tea. i know it sounds nuts and incomprehensible but it's unthinkable to ban guns in america, and regulation is becoming difficult.

i do strongly favor tighter regulation and registration. there are background checks required for gun purchases but the problem is that there is a "gun show loophole"-- you can basically walk into a fair-like market & walk out ready for civil war. but the open carry law of virginia (there are other states) is a different story-- and the movement is actually gaining ground all over the place. you can have a legal registered gun out in the open.

have some fun looking at the yahoos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_ca..._United_States

yes i agree with you it's "crazy" but remember: engrained in the psyche

only then you can begin to comprehend what this is about

ps here a little video
http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...ideos/06195_00

Like I said before, the second someone starts talking about gun ownership as privilege (as it should be) instead of a right, in some people's mind's you're fucking with Mom, the flag, and apple pie. If a politician did this, they'd either be blacklisted by their political party or assassinated by some gun nut.

I sympathize with suchfriend's plight, but at the same time if someone was shooting at me or my friends/family, I'd want the chance to shoot back. Guns aren't the problem; violence is. Eliminate the causes of violence and this thread wouldn't have a reason to exist.

And I agree with Rob that the dumbass who ended up killing his kid because his gun went off while he was cleaning it was a moron. Remember what I was talking about earlier regarding "responsible" gun ownership? Cleaning a loaded gun while your kid is in the room certainly isn't responsible.

I think it's a very weak form of politics that can't propose to alter a culture. Looking to GB, there's a load of things that were engrained in our psyche that have been eroded. We don't actually drink the tea of the stereotype, that's an imperialist-era hangover. Pub culture until about ten years ago was smoking, fighting, pub games and largely woman-less; thanks to a series of Labour legislation changes around health and booze taxation, a pub's more likely to be a bistro type affair with free wi-fi and young mothers drinking shit 'Italian' coffee in the afternoons than it is somewhere for men to go and complain about their Missus.

Similarly, British football culture is very different now. Thanks to a more sophisticated policing of crowds, seated stadia and more punitive measures for football violence, the idea of going to a game for a fight with the other team is severely diminished. There are still remnants, but it's by no means what it was in the 60s and 70s; further, football crowds are no longer primarily populated by working class men.

I would entirely agree that altering gun culture in America isn't going to happen soon; I wouldn't agree that it's impossible. If we take my example of pubs, it is possible to remove fetishised objects like cigarettes from an 'engrained' culture; they'll still stick around in some form, but smoking levels and related health problems have been severely reduced thanks to the (EU-imposed) smoking ban.

I don't think it even requires any notion of changes being 'radical' - health care reform is finally moving in the States - it's not an ideal system, but it is a definite step in the right direction. It's taken a strong leader with a lot of popular support to force through those changes, and they're not as huge as I think the left would've liked, but things can change. So far as I can make out, in spite of a fairly large public and political resistance to health care reform, they have taken place and no-one has rioted.

I think it's a very weak form of politics that can't propose to alter a culture. Looking to GB, there's a load of things that were engrained in our psyche that have been eroded. We don't actually drink the tea of the stereotype, that's an imperialist-era hangover. Pub culture until about ten years ago was smoking, fighting, pub games and largely woman-less; thanks to a series of Labour legislation changes around health and booze taxation, a pub's more likely to be a bistro type affair with free wi-fi and young mothers drinking shit 'Italian' coffee in the afternoons than it is somewhere for men to go and complain about their Missus.

Similarly, British football culture is very different now. Thanks to a more sophisticated policing of crowds, seated stadia and more punitive measures for football violence, the idea of going to a game for a fight with the other team is severely diminished. There are still remnants, but it's by no means what it was in the 60s and 70s; further, football crowds are no longer primarily populated by working class men.

I would entirely agree that altering gun culture in America isn't going to happen soon; I wouldn't agree that it's impossible. If we take my example of pubs, it is possible to remove fetishised objects like cigarettes from an 'engrained' culture; they'll still stick around in some form, but smoking levels and related health problems have been severely reduced thanks to the (EU-imposed) smoking ban.

I don't think it even requires any notion of changes being 'radical' - health care reform is finally moving in the States - it's not an ideal system, but it is a definite step in the right direction. It's taken a strong leader with a lot of popular support to force through those changes, and they're not as huge as I think the left would've liked, but things can change. So far as I can make out, in spite of a fairly large public and political resistance to health care reform, they have taken place and no-one has rioted.

But then you say EVERYONE has the RIGHT to have a gun, even total morons. Can you imagine what it sounds like to us? You're defending this guy's RIGHT to be a moron and purchase a gun and accidentaly kill his kid.

It's like you're focusing on the right of morons more than on the rights of people who are wounded and murdered.

You can't eliminate the causes of violence completely (perhaps eliminate the social causes of violence) but you just can't stop the human being from being violent. You guys seem to be ignoring the fact that the whole rest of the continent (especially poorer countries) is SUFFERING the consequences of your lack of regulation. Or the fact that the gun industry and its lobby is supporting a lot of shit.

I don't like that defeatist attitude: that's how it is. Well, homophobia is also ingrained in people's psyche but you have to allow gay couples to marry because that's the right thing to do. Things change.

If I'm living in a country where any jackass can buy and carry a gun, I am under threat, and it certainly wouldn't feel like living in a free democratic country. Suppose it doesn't matter because dead people can't vote.

We need to face this truth: the idea that someone will invade your house and shoot at your white family and you'll be able to save them and everyone will survive and the bad guys will be dead is too far-fetched and movie-like. Now the POORER communities that most of us don't even drive near by have a REAL number of people being killed, are under the control of criminal groups that impose their powers with the use of guns, have a lower life expectancy among young people. People are dying, lots of people are.

If I had to give up a 'right' to save some of them in the long term I certainly would.

That is because most gun owners are total paranoid morons. It takes one to know one.
Increased safety because everyone is carrying a gun ended with the wild west. But the republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Please reread my post. I was saying douchebags like him are the LAST people on Earth who should be allowed to KNOW of guns' EXISTANCE, let alone be able to see, touch, or use them. My comment regarding thinking of gun ownership as a privilege instead of a right being seen as un-American is an observation based on fact, not some opinion of mine. If you're not an American, I'm sorry, but you don't really have a clear grasp of the role of guns in our culture. Now, there are a lot of things I don't like about our culture: contemporary country music; karaoke bars (yes, I know it comes from Japan but you have to admit Americans can bring it to new lows); pickup trucks, SUVs, and various other low-mileage vehicles (except muscle cars-those rule); and the idea of referring to a sport that involves minimal use of the feet as "football". But I enjoy a good gunfight in the movies, and even though I know in reality gun battles are anything but thrilling to anyone but the sick minded, I don't support the idea of banning firearms entirely. You can say it's naive, misguided, psychotic, or whatever, but I can tell you that I do know someone who successfully defended his home against an intruder a few years ago.

When we ride... Whoop! Whoop!
It's like an air wave...Oh shit!
When we ride... Whoop! Whoop!
It's like an air wave...Oh shit!
When da rydas is ridden up on ya
Duk da fuk down!
When da rydas is ridden up on ya
Duk da fuk down!


When we ride... Whoop! Whoop!
It's like an air wave...Oh shit!
When we ride... Whoop! Whoop!
It's like an air wave...Oh shit!
When da rydas is ridden up on ya
Duk da fuk down!
When da rydas is ridden up on ya
Duk da fuk down!

The only thing funnier than that video is the comment list below it...

I'm just going to assume you've figured out that the Psychopathic Rydas are a gangster rap satire w/ the guys from ICP, Twiztid, etc. ; and are therefore moreso laughing with them, than at them. They're so thug that they even steal most of their beats.

I'd hope you would prefer simply to not have the violence, rather than to have the eye for an eye opportunity.. the reality is that guns ARE precisely the problem, because the instigate, provoke and exaggerate violence. Fist fights and arguments blow up way out of proportion with even the HINT of a gun..

I never wanted a gun to defend myself, I just wanted people with guns to stay out of my business ;)

Yes but again you're missing the mark in assuming that the US should have a STRONG government. It doesn't. It isn't France. It's not the UK either. This is a much bigger country, it's composed of 50 (that's 50) different states each with their own Constitution and laws and local governments that are different from each other. There are overriding federal laws but those are quite limited. Germany might be a closer comparison, or Spain with is autonomous regions-- and you know what happened when Franco tried to ban Euzkera or Catalonian, right?

Here we had a civil war 150 years ago on the issue of "states rights". Not slavery per se, but the power of the Federal government to dictate what states can or cannot do. It was a bloody fucking carnage and the feds won but the distrust of the Federal government remains high in a lot of places.

Besides, there is a HUGE libertarian streak in this country-- it's not necessarily that Ron Paul is going to get a lot of votes, but the ideas are spread much further than his radical fringe. The basic notion is that the government is evil and intrusive and that the best government is the smallest government. Reagan won 2 elections with that platform. Newt Gingrich took over Congress in the mid-90s on a similar platform-- to gut the Federal government to its minimum possible size. Clinton played chicken with him (shut down the government) and won-- but he was still hamstringed on many fronts.

The point is, while in other countries people expect a lot, if not all, from their government, the American government is indeed weak and people tend to put the responsibility on the individual more than on the collective. I don't necessarily agree with this, and I have campaigned for the "godless liberals" (yes, the Bible & the Gun go together like peanut butter and jam), but I know enough to know that the government can only take small steps and that the notion of banning guns in America is utterly laughable-- you might as well try to squeeze orange juice out of chunks of marble.

And then there's the Senate! It's like, imagine if the House of Lords had huge power to entangle and delay legislation forever if not kill it-- sure, Senators are elected, but that's another clusterfuck that's too long to discuss.

See here about the American form of government:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/Am...ts/demrep.html
(I don't endorse that website but it shows well what I'm talking about).

Long story short: Americans like their government weak and small, and Obama is a Black Power Muslim Communist! (You won't believe the things people say here. I hear them every day).

OK, back to work...

Oh, of course. Everyone knows the best way to win a fight is to not get into one in the first place.

Don't worry, I wasn't talking about you you.

But let's think of the cycle: why are criminals walking around heavily armed?

The great many that are responsible shouldn't be made to suffer for the few that aren't (and most gun owners are very responsible).

In my mind, freedom will always win over safety. That's just me though.

I'll argue for a bit...I got some time to kill today and quite frankly I'm in a fantastic mood.

Funny you should say this, because safety is defined as freedom from danger or hazards. So in essence you're saying total freedom will win over freedom from danger.

Do you see that as a good thing?

It's kind of pointless to ask, you'll see. I'll just make it short for you:

"My freedom is more important than your freedom"
"Freedom for the poor is their freedom to pay the consequences for being poor"
"Your freedom to live is not more important than my freedom to have something I don't need"

The last can be applied to the whole scheme of consumerim too.

Conclusion: freedom is for some.

Oh, what you can do with the WORD 'freedom' these days is fantastic.


(this would make dr.benway proud)

Yeah, I do realise this. I don't want to sound like a reaming hippy, but I think it's sort of important to demand more from politics. Some demands will likely never be met (say, communism or my desire to have sex with Nigella Lawson) some are met in spite of a lack of public support (Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, Obama's health care reforms if you read the right-wing press) some are part of ongoing struggles (end of apartheid in SA, abolition of slavery in general)... I think the point that lots of people are saying 'it's the way it is' is really defeatist. Sure, America has a weak form of government (many years ago I read up loads on how it works, and it baffles me quite frankly) but it's hardly like America is completely incapable of making lasting and meaningful positive reforms.

That'd only make sense if you didn't have a government. You do, it's there, you elect it, you pay for it, it uses your money and interferes in your life and tells you what to do. But you'd say you shouldn't demand anything from it? Is that the idea of liberalism? Sounds like they're free yeah.

This is called twisting words around + making them mean what you want them to mean.

I'm one of those that doesn't mind walking down the street at two am, knowing that I MIGHT get mugged/shot/raped/beaten....I don't mind, because I know when I walk the streets at 2am, I'm taking a a risk. I'd rather that risk be allowed, then to not be. I enjoy walking around late at night after most have already turned in, and the streets are pretty and quiet. I enjoy this in the same way some might enjoy target practice....it's relaxing. + I don't think it's fair when people assume things about others they know nothing, absolutely nothing, about ( and that isn't directed at you Genetic...). People should have the right to do whatever they want, as long as it isn't hurting others....and most with guns ARE NOT hurting others. Again, there's always going to be a few bad apples...that's just part of the risk.

The majority should always win when it comes to these things.

An overly safe world ='s an overly boring world.

And again, there is NO SUCH THING as criminals without guns. It's not even worth fantasizing about. A world w/ out guns is the same thing as a world without drugs or sex...it's just a stupid concept..an idea...a dream coming from those that favor a government in control of absolutely everything.

but the people have to WANT TO make those reforms. you can't impose an unpopular law from above. "hey, i'm the king of england, and i tell you americans you can't own guns". well...

i don't think that people want to have gun reform legislation at this point. that is a matter of state by state. california, by the way, has one of the most stringent gun laws in the country, and look at the murder rate in los angeles.

actually, states with more permissive gun laws have a lower homicide rate. the argument is that criminals can always get guns if they want to and you're only restricting law-abiding civilians with the laws. i don't think this is such a simple argument, but that's how it goes.

by the way, health care was overdue-- it's been attempted for 100 years! theodore roosevelt first proposed it! and the majority of people filing for bankruptcy do so because of medical bills. so while there was tremendous opposition there was also overwhelming popular support for health care reform. the medical system has been broken forever and people were just fucking fed up with it.

it's just not the same case with guns. americans at large don't believe that they have a gun problem. some people do, but i don't think it's the majority of the country. if anything, there is a movement to expand "gun rights" at the moment. d.c. just had its gun ban lifted in court and there are lawsuits in other cities that ban guns-- like chicago. see: http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-i...-gun-mindset-1

the electoral climate is not there to amend the constitution or to fuck with the regulation provided by each state. it's not a monolithic government. while from the outside this might look terrifying i don't think this is a priority for most people in this country. really. what people want is to keep guns away from criminals, but not to curtail the rights of civilians to own guns. it's a different country and it wants different things from yours.

It sounds REALLY fucked up in combination with your avatar.
I don't know if I should laugh?

[quote=!@#$%!] if anything, there is a movement to expand "gun rights" at the moment. d.c. just had its gun ban lifted in court and there are lawsuits in other cities that ban guns-- like chicago. see: http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-i...-gun-mindset-1
.[/quote

somebody is paying for that.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to GeneticKiss again.

The Gun Culture of the American West

"Full embrace of firearms may be a scary thought in Washington, but not out West."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=artslot

"The full embrace of guns is fervent in Montana, where nearly two-thirds of all households have firearms."


Gun-toting soccer moms a scary thought in D.C. area, but not out west

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081402547.html


Md. crime victim sues over denial to renew permit to carry concealed handgun

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=artslot

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