I bet MaggieL is looking under bed every night before going to sleep. There might be a socialist there...

"A man with a gun is a citizen, a man without a gun is a subject. Our forefathers knew this to be true..... Why do so many of us question their wisdom?"

"To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them." ~George Mason~

"To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow... For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding." —Jeff Snyder

TJ on Disarming Public
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither
inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for
the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage
than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater
confidence than an armed man."
-Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria


“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.”
-- Samuel Adams, Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87 (February 6, 1788).


“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.”
-- Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 45 (Virginia Convention, June 5, 1788).


“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).


“I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.”
-- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426, June 16, 1788

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person
were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified
in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would
be justified in silencing mankind.”- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard
even his enemy from opposition: for if he violates this duty he
establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ”- Thomas Paine,
Dissertation On First Principles Of Government

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” - Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)

If guns are that important to maintaining freedom and liberty, wouldn't tanks, anthrax, nerve gas and nukular weapons be even better?

If guns are the critical factor to maintaining freedom and liberty, why isn't Iraq free? It's loaded with guns.

They're trying, don't you keep hearing the reports of more and more deaths there?

To (some of) them, killing Americans LEADS to freedom. Freedom from American opression.

North Korea should be very free, now that they have nukular weapons.;)

"People should not be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of their people"

How did I miss this? Esp. with my highly martial ancestry.

Or I might just content myself with giving you an Atomic Counter-Rotating Tittie Twister. With spray-can whipped cream. ;)

With the turn this part of the thread is taking, there might be some peripheral relevance to this in a thread I just started over in Philosophy: "Be Wary Of Strong Drink..."

No. And you'll just have to accept that, even if you cannot understand it.

I'm having a hard time keeping all the genuinely bad people sorted out. UG, are the the one who poops in tackle boxes or is that someone else? What, if anything have you done that's really really bad? Doesn't have to be poop related? Is there a mnemonic device that would help me remember that you are bad?

Um, can't think of one offhand. Probably a good sign.

This is the first I've heard of the tackle box thing. Sounds like a real eyebrow raiser.

UG, you'll just have to accept that I think you are nothing but a big-talking, annoying, brainlessly conservative, arrogant, lying, self-centered moron.

Wait, I forgot NeoMcCarthyist, bossy, mean-spirited, selfish, rude, inconsiderate, egomaniacal, snobbish, heartless... meh, I could go on for a while yet.