I can make a large bomb in a half a day from things you can get the day before, logistically you can get the info you need for a decent strategic strike in less than a week.

Most military bases have isolated water sources.

Who needs guns?

Again...

“God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed... what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.”
-- Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith on Nov. 13, 1787. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955).

Not so much that, as that he's overreacting so as to embarrass himself with the memory. The boy has failed to distinguish frustration from hatred -- all I ever did to him was tell him that I was satisfied the evidence was that tw is a communist, that evidence being found in tw's writing and point of view. Such proof was not sufficient for the lad, and he seems to have gotten very excited when I told him in the course of the discussion that if he indeed did know all about communist propaganda he'd've spotted tw as a communist before I did.

Next thing I heard, he spent two entire posts trying to make Urbane Guerrilla feel bad. I should smile! I'm certainly not complaining.

And this is the sort of thing you'd ally with, V? Pretty silly of you. I still like you anyway -- a chips-are-down thing.

Are you about to tell me you've been lying the whole time? I read your posts, Spexx. They are quite clear.

It shouldn't, but the socialists have contaminated a previously honorable philosophy. At one time, liberals were about all the civil liberties. Now to their shame they cherrypick, and the cherries they select are overripe.

I wish your arguments would actually show that that's what you're doing -- a summary or even better some links would be okay.

This is how Marichiko admits her arguments aren't as good as yours. And how, in the typical left-idiotic mode, she tries childishly to make you feel bad for winning out over her.

The anti-Republicans and anti-patriots have raised loud and unbecoming objections to EVERY SINGLE TACTIC AND STRATEGY THAT HAS HAD ANY LIKELIHOOD OF WINNING THE WAR FOR US and I am sick unto projective vomiting of it. Please consider the nature of our enemies.

Mari is, on legs, a reason why I am no sort of leftist.

Their clarity is lost on you, then. I am actually pro-death penalty. I am NOT pro-vigilante-ism. If everyone were to pack a gun, there would be many more innocent deaths. Read RK's posts. To paraphrase, he says "shoot, if there is any question. If you wait until the question is answered, it may be too late - you'll already be dead". How many others have that same perspective, and would shoot people who intend them no harm? These would be innocent people (hint, hint). I do value all life - it's rare that a death is better than most alternatives, preventing other/more deaths being the best reason for someone to die. You've read my posts? read more carefully, laddie.

Sometimes, being anti-repubican is being patriotic.
Sometimes, being patriotic means not going to war without good reason, or getting out of a war that has no upside for us, is exceptionally expensive, is decreasing our standing in the world community, is doing more harm than good, is causing the deaths of American troops, on and on and on.

UG still believes Bush went to war for patriotic reasons. God bless him.

Despite all these freedom-hating objections, the War For Terror has gone smashingly...

Spexx, darling... it's always good to replace a dictatorship with a democracy, and that very seldom happens by election, dictatorships being what they are. That seems to this democracy-lover to be quite a good and sufficient reason.

This has been understood in Christendom since the concept of 'just war' was floated in the fourth century by St. Augustine. And you were -- where? I perceive some lacunae in your education.

So, no: in this case, being anti-Republican is in no wise being patriotic, and you cannot show it so. Come on, you don't love democracy enough to want it to spread even into those places which most lack it? They'd benefit most from getting it, you know.

..... and who said the yanks don't understand irony...

You definitely need to rephrase that to state "read into RK's posts".
I pointed out specific situations.
I was in security for three years, had knives, broken bottles and suspected people of having guns more than once, pulled on me... I have yet to shoot someone in that situation.
The times I did shoot at people the threat was clear or the interpretation had to be made in favor of deciding to assume that they were more than likely to use their weapons as not to, or I was being shot at.

Again, however, if someone is in my home uninvited & unannounced I am not going to ask to see their weapon... as a good father and the protector of my family I have NO CHOICE but to assume they are armed and their to kill us.
There is no time for anything else. That is a fact.
Giving them the opportunity to kill me makes me a bad father, husband and person.

Anti-democrats would like to pretend this is irony. The rest of us know better.

I have no defined, resolved opinion on this matter. I'd love to own a gun, they appeal to me on many levels,I may in fact buy one at some point. More of a rifleman than a handgunner, though there is a lot of fun in shooting handguns.

Most of the reasons people post about protection, revolution, etc. don't really sway my opinions.

I did see a funny bumper sticker the other day: If guns are outlawed only outlaws will accidentally shoot their children. But that is the problem with the whole debate. almost instant recourse to wild, emotionally freighted arguments and very little objective fact. A lot of unlikely "what if..." scenarios used as reasons to be armed.

I know a lot of gun owners and out of the group I'd say only about three of them are truly safe and responsible about their firearms.

I, personally, would like the right to buy pistols and rifles, and I'd also like the right to vet who else gets to buy them.

As for the old intruder in the house scenario I wouldn't need a gun. I'd be perfectly capable of beating the pulp out of someone with a lamp or chair or handful of quarters in a sock.

I can improvise.

I know a lot of unsafe gunners. To me you can make all the pragmatic arguments you want, but gun ownership is a political decision that says the individual's rights outweigh the State's. Of course I'm into the scotch...

Even if it was Chuck Norris? :eek:

there you go again, arguing the exception...

But if it was chuck norris I'd just hold up a mirror and he'd go into a feedback loop of self immolation creating a black hole which would actually suck time into itself.

Who are the state? Can't we do anything to minimise their tiresomeness?

On the converse, I know alot of people, none of whom have needed a gun to protect themselves from home invasion, rape, robbery, or rape. I said rape twice - I like rape.

Lowering the number of guns will lower the number of murders. It seems like common sense.

Today's news brings us the exact opposite conclusion via the Sydney Morning Herald.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...455665717.html

600,000 guns removed from the system, on an island continent with some of the world's most restrictive gun laws. Ten years later, no measureable effect.

Of course, nations differ and Your Nation's Results May Vary. But to me, the lesson is:

It's the character of the people, the culture and the society that determines the murder rate. Not how many tools they have to get the job done.

Focus on the tools, and you are wasting your time.

Focus instead on creating a society where violence is unacceptable.

Set a good example, by, for instance, invading random countires for no reason.

Maybe your friends are a bunch of morons. It's kind of a preselected cohort...

I probably know a lot more gun owners than than you, and they're all safe and responsible about their firearms. Or they wouldn't be my friends.

By the way, what proportion of "a lot" is "about three"?

I'd so prefer to be shot by MagL. The rest of you suck.

No..wait..No I wouldn't! She would never tell my family where my body was buried!

I'd be in some watery grave somewhere...with seagulls picking at my bones...seals rendering my flesh...! NO!

K, that's backwards, but you know what I mean.

As we all know, all crime victims instantly tell all their friends the moment they become a victim...especially if the crime is rape.

If I ever found it necessary to dispatch someone, it would be up to their family to do the burying. Otherwise they'd be left for the vultures.

Or maybe you're not admitting the truth, or you just don't know, or you don't want to jeopardize your argument.

I think MaggieL is a' courtin' me!

damn you, girl! Me thinks youse a keeper!

I have lots of friends. They would share with me. Don't you have that kind of relationship with people? Oh, I should have known.

OK.
a) I said "people I know" not "friends". So, the moron comment will have to be saved for later.
b) You probably have a lot more gun owning friends, than I do. I live in the country and every dick and his dog has a gun. Many have more guns than teeth, if you get my drift. Come for a visit any time, Thursdays are best, because then we can go to local traffic court and take the pulse of the local collective IQ. I bet after a few days in my neck of the woods, you may wonder about guns restrictions after all. I'm sure your friends are responsible, triple digit IQ having people. Preselected cohort, and all that. ;)

ps The three friends are about 6% of the gun owners I personally know. And about 40% of the gun owners I count as friends. (off the top of my head. I honestly haven't done an accounting)

I do. And that's why I know quite a few rape victims who have told very, very few people about their assault. Especially male people who might say something like...

When you shoot with someone, you discover pretty quickly what their firearms hygene is like, just as when you fly with somone you can tell their attitudes towards aviation safety.

I suppose it's a lot easier to flatly accuse someone of lying without grounds than it is to present a cogent argument.

But it's far less convincing.

So the "moron" comment was saved for later...exactly three sentences later.

Spex...I'm very curious to know what you mean when you say 'I like rape'. Explanation?

He's quoting -- and I believe rather misquoting -- two lines from a couple of the villains in Blazing Saddles.

Here too is another fantasy not borne out by historical or sociological research. There is at least one book out on vigilantism in California, citing occurrences in San Francisco and Bodie. I had the good fortune to read it, but suffer the bad fortune of being unable to recall its title, alas.

To begin with, armed self-defense is hardly vigilantism, but simply something humans will and can do, and which is a human right, after all. Vigilantism occurs when the citizenry believe, correctly or not, that the operation of justice is either inadequate or so corrupted it cannot actually do justice. In the California examples, vigilantism was an ad-hoc response to inadequacy of the judiciary to actually do something about crime, either general or in a specific case. Committees of Vigilance never lasted beyond an immediate problem -- after all, there was no money in it. One only sees vigilante action if the justice system, both juridicial and enforcement, has broken down and manifested incompetence at the social protection it's supposed to perform.

And this is not the belief among any of the correspondents in this thread: we all think the judiciary and law enforcement work, at least well enough.

Nor is there anything about innocents that gravitationally attracts promiscuous stray bullets. In the heavily-armed frontier era, the gun carriers made a point of not slinging lead at anyone, like frontier women, who wasn't slinging lead at them. Even then, the butchers' bill was not extreme. In the year before it was incorporated as a city, and believed by researchers to be its most man-eating year, Dodge City, Kansas had five homicides, total. This was generally true of experience all over the West: far less gunfighting than movies (dramas, you know?) would lead you to believe, and near ubiquitous carrying and possession -- subject to local ordinances, aimed at reducing shooting within city limits, but unconcerned with any firing one might be called upon to do outside them. It goes to illustrate Ringer's Paradox: that a freedom restricted is a freedom preserved. The art of the thing is not to over-restrict, which I believe is too often the case -- and a policy supported by uninformed opinion.

From Blazing Saddles

I know rape is not funny.

Another example that Maggie has no sense of humor.

From here.

Yeah, those legal gun owners sure are responsible, upstanding, reasonable folks who show good judgement...NOT

Fox "is not a source" :stickpoke

Yeah, rape is just so damned funny I forgot to laugh.

Just catch up with everybody else and "get" the damn reference.

Did you read the entire story? Like here if you don't like Fox.

The headlines screaming "man pulls gun because his son wasn't getting played" are false. Both Derkoch (5 feet 9, 215 pounds) and the referee who assaulted him (6 feet 3, 250 pounds) were charged. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the courts; the AgAssault is a felony; if convicted Derkoch will lose his permit.

Sorry, you'll have to enlighten me as to in which very hip context rape is funny.

It's been mentioned twice already.

"... "I see a gentleman pounding on another gentleman... "

Class, remember, gentlemen do not pound other gentlemen.

Neither do they obstruct justice, which is how I'd interpret trying to prevent someone from writing down a license plate number. I wonder what color the various skin tones of the people involved were, and why cops would witness someone being shoved 15 feet and lunged at and then arrest the same person when he attempts to defend himself and then let his attacker go free.

I'm sure it's all good.

What's your point? Does Derkoch's brandishing hie gun meet your (and PA law's) criteria for legality/justification?

By then, it's a little too late, isn't it.

That sounds very familiar... "lets stop lawbreaking before it happens!"
It has always been an excuse for removing freedoms and taking over populations.
Thanks for making it very clear to us all.

pre-emptive strike? Does this sound familiar to anyone at all??? I wonder who you'll be voting for at the next election.

Spex...in my very humble opinion, I think you would be better served not to quote lines like that in an open forum where there are women present who have been the vicitm of rape.

I apologize for being insensitive.

That's very kind of you Spex. I apologize for making you feel uncomfortable.

Right, that's like banning all private planes because a baseball player flew into a building.:right:

Would it not be more sensible to ban baseball players?

Easier anyway. You see how much headway we're making getting MaggieL to beat her arsenal into plowshares, what chance do you think you've got getting her to hand over her plane?:D

Still haven't read the law, I see.

But that doesn't matter much in this case, because the law on justification doesn't apply. Why? Because deadly force wasn't used. The courts will decide if the brandishing constituted AgAssault, which is how it's being charged. The way I read the statue it doesn't apply, but then I'm not a lawyer...or a Philadelphia judge.

I will point out that the brandishing was sufficient to terminate the assault, and no shots were fired, which is more than we can say for...

I also notice that Henwood is working very hard to distract attention from the fact that he threw the first punch, knocking Derkotch to the ground. Which shouldn't be difficult given that the vast majority of the media are telling this story without even menitioning that an assault was underway before the brandishing occurred. Henwood claims "I percieved a threat and struck him...", which should be a clue to you about the law...no doubt that was a statement coached by his attorney, because the way I read the AgAssault statute, given the facts as reported, Henwood is closer to being guilty of that than Derkotch is.

Still evading the tough questions, eh, Maggie? Please answer:

and
And Henwood should be punished. Derkotch was out of line just by accosting Henwood. Henwood was surely aware that situations like this could get violent, and so was probably on edge. Derkotch Did not remove himself from the confrontation - perhaps he was emboldened because he was packin' heat. When Henwood showed signs of violence, Derkotch STILL did not move away. After being struck, Derkotch STILL did not move away. Maybe carrying a gun causes an increase in non-gun-related violence, too.

It's not a deterrent, it's a punishment, and a way to ensure that the person won't ever get the chance to misuse a gun again.
I've come to believe that the threat of consequences does very little to deter people from serious crimes. Shoplifting, yes. Murder/rape, no.

Sure, and don't put a life vest on your kid until after he drowns. And don't stop smoking until after you have cancer. And let's not ban DDT. Let's not stop North Korea from having nukular weapons until after they massacre thousands of people. :right:

There certainly is a reasonableness to prevention.

I guess you're just hoping it's not your family that the guns are misused on.