Re: Esskay A few statistics

All these comments about banning cars etc are plain ridiulous - you're taking a weak argument to extremes to justify your shaky case for maintaining weapons in public hands. We all know that people die in car accidents, although the numbers are dropping in relative terms every year. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. The whole issue with Sandy Hook et al (another 2 shootings of multiple victims since then have made it to the news) is that is was NOT accidental. Comparing the 2 is like comparing cheese with wombats, and equally futile.

Your devil's advocate stance is becoming tedious - is there any depth to which you won't sink to trawl for a response? Perhaps if the gun lobby in the US spent its budget on providing clean water and innocuations then there would be a drop in 3rd world childrens' mortality. But I see you don't consider that possibility.

The argument for keeping semi automatic weapons at home boils down to "cos I want to". There is no sane reason for doing so.

Re: @ Greg Preece

"Bill of Rights 1689 (go look it up) and the Act of Settlement placed limits on Parliament's authority and on the King, and restated certain constitutional rights such as the right to move unmolested by agents of the king, the right to bear arms and the right to be free of "unusual punishment", amongst other things. Today these laws are ignored - because they're "old", is the usual excuse, yet they are still as relevant today as they were when they were first drafted, and if they were observed instead of ignored we'd be a much more free and prosperous country"

Um, not entirely accurate. The right to bear arms was a response to the previous (catholic) king's law that forbade protestants the right to be armed but did allow catholics. The Bill of Rights states that people had the right to beear arms for their own defence suitable for their class (all you peasants, use pitchforks) AS ALLOWED BY LAW. In other words, if it is *legal* then all people can carry weapons, not just some.

The Bill of Rights is a docuent largely curtailing the monarch's powers, following the atempted suppression of protestanism under James I and II.

Sections of the Bill are occassionally utilised today, if rarely.

@ Graham Dawson

"security is not only about borders. A state remains free only as long as its government is beholden to the governed"

In what ways do privately held weapons make the US govt beholden to the citizens? You really think if you decided the government was oppressive you could march up to the White House with your friends and start shooting? You'd be shot by the police/army within moments.

This argument is invalid. You have no chance of changing government by force of arms unless you get the military on your side.

And yes, I can say that something is out of date. Some laws are worth keeping, othes become outmoded or irrelevant. I'm not a fan of a great deal of what our government does either, but I'm not kidding myself that if I was able to carry a weapon at all times it would make the slightest difference.

Re: The right to bear arms (does not define those arms for a reason!)

"There is a history behind the Second Amendment that you Brits seem to deny at every turn.

Your forebears foolishly thought they could tax us Americans to death without having any legal recourse or representation. We then showed them that they were wrong and tossed them out."

Uh, you were "brits" too. Don't confuse history with Hollywood. You also forget to mention the French who provided just a bt of help.

"To prevent that from happening again, our forefathers wrote an amendment whose intent was that every citizen has the right to defend themselves from an unjust government as well as criminals."

As ratified by Congress and Jefferson - A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Also to defend against tyrannical government and put down slave revolts.

Please note the key words "A well regulated Militia"

If you define a tyrranical government as one that doesn't want you to carry semi automatic weapons I think there is something wrong.

Re: Jim Booth

The worst part is I find myself having to agree with Michael Moore and Piers Morgan.

Re: Odd topic

You miss your hand gun don't you?

Re: What if?

" I wanna buy a gun!"

official: "why sir?"

"to, uh hunt stuff"

offical: " ok sir so why do you need a semi auto rifle and armour piercing rounds?"

"uhhhhh in case the deer is wearing body armour?"

offical: "do you do a lot of hunting in the city sir?"

Simples.

"Far more people will die from automobile accidents, so I presume you'll be swallowing your own medicine and walking everywhere form now, right?"

I think you missed the important word in your own post there Matt - "ACCIDENTS"

Life isn't 100% safe, we all tend to die of something. I would prefer it not to be some tw@t with a gun who thinks his right to bear arms is more important than other people's lives.

Re: @Skizz

@ AC

Are you then saying that in states where carrying concealed weapons is permitted there is no criminal gun activity?

Re: An NRA spokespersons said...

or...just don't give them access to guns?

"we should be seeing a dozen massacres a day every day" - look up the figures for gun deaths in the US.

Re: An NRA spokespersons said...

Nice of you to start with personal attacks. It's not about ensuring the *absolute* safety of children, it's about relative safety. There are always nutters around who will do their best to damage or kill. Without easy access to firearms this does become a bit harder to do. You quote 2 multiple murders that didn't include guns. OK. Now list all the attacks with guns in the same period that killed 2 or more people, I think you might spot a flaw in your argument.

If Lanza had been in a "secure unit" then no, he wouldn't have killed anyone. He was a quiet kid and a bit of a loner up till the point he went postal (look up that reference if you like) - are you now proposing anyone who is a bit quiet of doesn't have many friends should be under psychiatric supervision or locked up?

Glad to see you don't swallow this video games BS though.

@ Greg Preece

The right to bear arms was added as an amendment to the constitution as part of an organised militia. The new USA didn't have a standing army at the time, they instead wanted an armed and trained militia ready to fight in the new country's defence at a moment's notice.

You're not seriously suggesting that the millions of guns held in private hands in the US are there simply to guard against foreign invasion (uh, who?) or to rebel against the government? You may have noticed the US has quite a big army these days.

The second amendment is over 200 years old and irrelevent to modern life. We have old laws and statutes in the UK too, we (eventually) repeal them or ignore them. Time for the US to move on.

Re: Plan B? Plan C?

And how are you going to do that exactly? People don't always go around barking at the moon if they are suffering from a mental illness, you know. Besides, sometimes people just "snap" - we've all been there, too much stress, too much work, someone says the wrong thing....most of us slam a few doors and hit the pub, but where you can grab your semi-auto rifle and wreak a little vengeance, people are killed.

No, guns don't pull their own triggers, but if the guns weren't there at all, nobody would.

Re: Right...

Agreed, there is no quick fix. I would argue however that removing guns from the equation would rather reduce the death rate. I find some video games unpleasant and pointless, I don't enjoy what some call the pornongraphy of violence. I also don't see how one can on one hand point the finger at video games/ violent films (yet again...) while simply ignoring the elephant in the room - this young man went crazy with a gun, it doesn't matter whether it's an assault rifle, a semi-auto rifle or a small pistol. No gun = no shooting.

I'm continually astonished by the American people's willingness to accept that *anything* other than guns is the problem - video games, comics, rock music, you name it. Not guns, oh no.

In reply to an earlier post, of course I'm aware drunk drivers cause huge numbers of casualties, but nobody is suggesting surely that people with remorseless regularity go out and deliberately drive into a group of passers-by or school children? It happens, yes, but it is phenomenally rare. To compare road accidents for whatever cause with deliberate murder by gun is pointless.

Re: Many missing the point

What you are missing here is that most of the people who go barking mad with guns are just that - barking mad to some degree or other. They no longer see people as people, of any consequence or value at all. And they don't actually think about surviving most of the time - yes your 50 armed heroes might blast away at what the NRA calls a "bad guy" (still think you're living in a Hollywood western guys?) but he will nevertheless have probably killed half a dozen people before your good guys are even aware of what's going on. Beside which, can you imagine 50 guns firing at once? You better hope that they are all crack marksmen. I've fired handguns (before they were banned here) - I *know* how innacurate they are at any kind of range. So, heat of the moment shooting by probably panicked people with handguns with dubious accuracy at a person quite happily firing semi auto or auto rifles at you. How many bystanders are you willing to kill to get your "bad guy"?

Re: Proven: Crims get all the guns when the people are suppressed!

TOTC is regularly abused by any twat who wants to control your life in lots of little pointless ways.

However, there comes a point when you have to take a step back from freedom at all costs and look around yourself. If a state has come to the point of even considering arming school teachers or having armed guards at primary schools, I think it's lost the plot. Sometimes you actually do have to think about children.

Re: Proven: Crims get all the guns when the people are suppressed!

"some" people think it;s ok for nutters to be armed with semi automatic rifles...

I fail to see your oh-so-clever point. Smoking drinking etc don't usually kill random passersby etc. You're being a pathetic apologist for your "hobby". Man up, accept the facts. Guns kill people. It's what they were desgned to do from first principles. And before you bleat on about "people kill people", does that argument extend to all forms of death dealing stuff? Why stop at assault rifles? Howitzers are lovely, they don't kill people. Nukes don't either. Yes, I'm being facetious but you started this by being ridiculous.

Re: Proven: Crims get all the guns when the people are suppressed!

"Now look at your crime ridden scared to walk around on your streets, youth crime out of control rubbish place to live in. I'm talking about you UK!"

Yes that's right, we in the UK have a huge gun problem, every week we hear of yet another shooting by a nutter going walkabout with his famiy's arsenal of semi-automatic weaponry.......

Yes, we have a few gang related gun deaths every year. What does prevent a "loner and looney " (your words) from killing kids is the LACK OF FLIPPING MILITARY GRADE FIREARMS.

Yes, Israel armed some teachers when jihadist suicide bombers were targetting schools, not because a couple of citizens went crazy.

I detect from your post that you are a member of the "legal firearm owning community" and are jumping up and down in a fury about your precious guns being possibly restricted. But look at it this way - you may be a responsible well-balanced citizen who collects guns, only fires them at a properly run range, keeps them securely locked away when not in use etc etc. However, all it takes is one person to be less conscientious than you and suddenly you have 20 dead chidren. What is the government to do? Government isn't a subtle tool, they can only introduce fairly broad laws to limit or control firearms.

I've seen the whiny comments about the banning of handguns after Dunblane and the frothing panic by gun lovers after Sandy Hook - and frankly my response is "who cares?" Does your hobby matter more to you than the lives of little children?

Re: Ban the Mentally ill from playing

"So if you are playing a special ops soldier needing to shoot at heads of your enemy to ensure instant kill, we tend to unconsciously bring this thinking in the real world especially when stressed."

Really? Is this a researched assessment or just a subjective statement? I suspect what you mean is that *some* mentally ill people can't always tell reality from whatever their illness is creating in their heads. I know dozens of people who play violent video games, some of them are mentally ill (severe depression etc) and none of them have shot anyone or even gone crazy with a cricket bat.

Are you suggesting there should be a mental health assessment before you are allowed to play a video game?

People have always gone off the rails and committed vile crimes, long before video games and tv and Hollywood were invented. Don't fall for this knee-jerk response and blame something like video games or rock music - anyone who even contemplates making a link between mass murder and pressing a few buttons on an xbox has clearly already made up their mind that the cause is proven. It's just a way of avoiding the real issue and shifting blame on to an easy target, rather than bite the bullet (pun intended).

crazy

Rich celebs can afford better lawyers. Money buys you the justice you can afford these days. I fail to see how Scarlett's "humiliation" is worse than someone else's rape or assault. Ridiculous. Mind you, if you can get jailed for failing to predict earthquakes now, where does it end?

Re: Ok, but how far does their hubris extend?

You have a state with, let's be kind, a volatile leadership. They repeatedly state their intention to destroy their enemies. They insist on a nuclear program, denying it's for anything but domestic power production but refuse international observers access. You wonder why the western powers are concerned.

Not sure quite what relevence Kissinger has to this, however.

Re: Not to be confused with a HOLODECK

Sorry - are we now allowing blatantly racist comments to stand? And re the OP - Israel can't nazify (wtf that is) itself you ignorant ass, read some history, preferably not one written by David Irving - Iran is headed by a government whose sworn aim is the destruction of Israel and you wonder why the Israelis get a little twitchy at the thought of a nuclear armed Iran.

Re: Apparently there's a 'safe place' somewhere in France...

et cela coupe ma propre gorge, châtelain!

Re: IT angle on mutations

But a strand of DNA is a bit more complicated than a chunk of binary code. This might be a good analogy if you could code software that actually built the computer it ran on.

Re:that's no moon...

You beat me to it, dammit. It's clearly the Death Star.

Re: How About Dog-Fights?

The spirit of Michael Bentine's Potty Time lives on

Re: Biggest thing my cat ever brought in...?

Mine brings in squirrels, rabbits, a hedgehog once, fish, rats (lovely!) mice, voles and various birds. Never a seagul though.

@ RegisterThisToo

Feel free to post your bigoted idiocy somewhere else.

And frankly I'm unimpressed with the moderators for allowing this level of utterly irrelevant drivel to remain on here.

I suppose it's the downside of people all being different - children respond to similar situations in different ways. However, I was trying to make the point that *in general* poor behaviour in children is a direct result of the parents' failures, whether by absence, aggression, etc. There are always exceptions of course; genuine behavioural problems in the child can manifest, without any parental failings, for a number of physiological and psychological reasons.

Re: @Vladimir Plouzhnikov -- Re loss of control.

Time-honoured fashion...hmm...I have 2 well behaved polite children who have never once been beaten in their lives, no matter what they did. Corporal punishment = lazy parenting, sorry.

Of course those who bleat the loudest are the music biz freeloaders who have been relentlessly ripping off artists for years. Now they find themselves losing the ability to scam the punters for 90% of the value of a CD and look to their lawyers.

carrots

That would only hold true if my neighbours came in and took a copy of my carrots

ok....

You don't like the item being reviewed - doesn't make it "irresponsible journalism". And swearing rather undermines your point. Yes these do fire out a lot of radio interference, but in terms of sheer numbers how many radio ops are actually inconveinienced by one household's use of powerline wifi?